A Tale Told By An Idiot
by Marla Fair
Summary: It is 1875. Two years later, Joe Cartwright's inability to cope with his wife's death is ruining his life. His Pa thinks getting away might be the answer. Little does Ben know that his decision will put Joe's life in danger, as well as the lives of the Ingalls' family who take a wounded Joe in and bring the wrath of a man who hates him down on their heads.
1. Prologue

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Prologue

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The handsome young man finished latching his satchel and then rested his trembling gloved hands on the case's leather exterior. He stood in silence for a moment, thinking, and then crossed to the window and looked out at the fading October day, forcing his mind back to the moment when he had chosen to walk away from everything he had known. At the time, he hadn't decided if he would ever go back.

He still didn't know.

Of course, he'd said nothing about leaving for good to his father that day or any of the other days before when they had talked over, decided on, and planned this trip. There were big innovations happening in the timber and milling industries in Minnesota and Wisconsin and his pa thought it would be a good idea for him to take an extended trip and see just what they were. There was also hope that with the expansion of the railroad and the opportunities for transporting goods it provided, there might be a place for Ponderosa lumber in the East. He had several old friends in the area – mill owners and operators – his pa had said as he slipped a paper into his hand with three men's names written on it. Pa said the trip would do him a world of good. It would be a chance for him to get away, to see new sights and gain a new perspective.

He didn't want a new perspective.

He wanted his old one back.

Lifting his hands, the young man placed them a foot apart on the window panes. It was raining. Hard. Water coursed down the bubbled glass echoing the tears flowing down his cheeks. In it he saw a reflection of the life he had tasted for a little less than a year. If he had known what was to come, he would have savored it like a fine wine, rolling it on his tongue, considering the flavor, the bouquet – the _sweetness_ – of each and every moment so he could hold onto that taste for eternity. But there had been cows to rope and horses to break and fences to mend and a house to finish, and the time he had spent with her had been no more than one or two deep inhaled breaths.

Then, with a suddenness he still could not comprehend, she was gone.

Utterly devastated, the young man rested his curly head between his hands, touching his forehead to the cold pane of glass. In his life, he had seldom questioned his father's wisdom. He questioned it now.

Pa should never have sent him alone.

He'd rarely been alone in his life, being the baby in the family and all. For those first five years he'd been only one in a crowd that included his mama and Pa, as well as his two older brothers. Then, though Pa continued to insist that God was watching over them and that the man upstairs _was_ in control, that crowd started to thin like a herd exposed to winter kill. First, it has been Mama. And then his oldest brother had left, never to return. Next, his middle brother died so suddenly and unexpectedly that the thought of it still had the power to take his breath away.

When Alice died, it had all but stopped his heart.

Joseph Francis Cartwright, the only remaining son of Benjamin Cartwright, once one among many and now only one, turned and dropped into the chair beside the window. Leaning back, he rested his head with its tousled silver-grey curls on the cheap hotel wallpaper and closed his eyes. The tears were unstoppable now. The all-too-familiar soul-wracking sobs were forming, rising from the darkness within. In time, if he didn't stop them, his too-thin body would shake and convulse until he was spent. Joe's green eyes flicked to the table beside the bed that held the cure. The bottle of whiskey sitting on its scarred top was a new one. It was almost full. As he looked at it, a chagrined smile curled the corner of his lips. You'd think a man crying himself out would be enough to wear him down and let him rest. But it wasn't. It only left him empty. And an empty thing needed to be filled, now, didn't it? Least, that's what he told himself every time he tossed back enough liquor to become numb and fall in a drunken stupor to the bed.

'Course when he woke the next day he just felt twice as empty.

His pa was worried about him. He knew that. It had taken about all the older man had in him to send him away. Alice had been gone for close to two years now. Life had moved on and for a time he thought he had too. Then, as the endless days marched forward, sometimes pointless, most times painful, he began to doubt there _was_ a purpose to it after all. His Pa'd been taken hostage not once, but twice, coming close to being killed. He'd lost that beautiful black stallion that had made his heart soar above the constant grief. Candy had left. Griff had been hired on and left. Jamie was still with them, but he was a man now and soon he'd be gone as well. Joe sucked in air as another face from the past came to mind.

Then, just under a year back, there'd been Tanner and the torture he'd suffered at the insane soldier's hands.

His soul and his body longed for Alice. He missed his brothers more than he could say. But it was his nightmares of that time in the desert, still so potent after _so_ long a time, that had capped it all and uncorked the bottle of his despair.

His black moods were what had made his pa send him away to gain that 'new' perspective.

Joe rose and went over to the bedside table. Picking up the whiskey bottle, he held it in his hand and looked at it as he sat on the edge of the bed. He'd never considered himself a weak man. He would have decked the first man-jack who suggested he was. He still didn't know if he was weak, really, but he was certainly broken.

Joe snorted and shook his head as he removed the stopper from the bottle. He thought of all those years he'd spent breaking the spirit of those wild, beautiful horses. He wondered now if this was how they felt when he did.

He wondered if they hated him busting them as much as he hated himself for being busted.

Lifting the bottle to his lips Joe took a good, long swig. Still holding the bottle, he lay back against the cool feather pillows. Tomorrow would begin the last leg of his journey to La Crosse, Wisconsin. The hotel, such as it was, that he was staying in was located in a town called Medary, established by the Dakota Land Company out of Minnesota in eighteen fifty-seven. It hadn't grown up much due to the railroad passing it by, but things were improving – at least that was what everyone he'd run into in the town told him since it seemed now that the train might just be coming this way after all. That train would make or break the small town that was mostly made up of Norwegian immigrants. He'd made some inquiries about the man he was supposed to look up for his pa in Minnesota on his way through and found he was a relative of one of the families in Medary. They'd given him instructions on how to find the mill the man owned and operated. Traveling there was the reason he'd left the train behind and bought a horse of the man who owned the livery for the final part of his journey. The small town was off the beaten track and had only been platted a year or so back. It had been named for a grove of Black Walnut trees standing nearby.

Taking another long drink Joe closed his eyes and waited for the whiskey's numbing qualities to wash over him. He'd been a hard-drinking man in his youth, wild at times but rarely out of control. Even his brothers – who were no saints themselves – had been amazed at how much liquor he could hold and stay in possession of his wits. He opened one eye and measured the golden-brown liquid in the bottle. About three more gulps and he'd be done. Done with another day without his brothers. Done with twenty-four more hours without his wife.

Done with every single minute he'd lived since he'd lost his child.

Done with life.

Joe took another drink. This time he felt that edge, like the world was tilting slightly and if he timed it just right, he might just slide out the open door and be gone.

Yeah.

Pa should never have sent him alone.


	2. Chapter 1

ONE

"Laura Ingalls, what do you think you're doing?!"

The brown-haired girl looked over her shoulder. Her sister Mary wasn't really asking a question, she was shouting.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Laura snapped back as she took another step, careful to avoid the thorns in the ankle-deep underbrush. "I'm gonna find out what's makin' so much noise."

"If you rip up your new socks Ma's gonna be awful mad."

She'd thought about that. If she could have found somewhere to sit down, she would have taken her new striped socks off. But there wasn't anywhere to sit down 'cause everywhere she looked there was blackberry bushes. She'd lifted up her skirts and tucked them behind the waistband of her pantalettes to keep them safe. If Ma'd seen that, the scolding would have been even worse 'cause even though she wasn't gonna tear her dress and underpinnings, she was showing her ankles – well, even her knees – and that was what Ma called 'scandalous.' She said it was the kind of thing _disorderly_ ladies did.

Whatever that meant.

"I can already see a run in the back of the left one!" Mary yelled.

"Well, then, ain't no point in me stoppin', is there?" she countered, her tone churlish. "I'll just take what punishment I get and be happy for it if it means I helped somethin' or somebody who needs it!"

That took her sister back a little bit. "Can you see anything?" Mary asked, her voice softer.

Laura peered ahead. It was late in the day. The sun was sinking down toward the horizon. It was almost sitting right on top of the ripened corn and, for the moment, was throwing its light across the bottomland by the creek. They were coming up on the place where Middle Ridge-fire Road turned north toward town and had about two more miles to go to the east before they'd be home. Mary'd been tutoring one of the Mason girls who lived west of Walnut Grove and she'd gone along to play with Janie's little sister, to keep her out of Mary's hair. Jennie was just about Carrie's age. She was real cute and fun and she didn't mind. Mrs. Mason had paid Mary fifty cents for the tutoring this week and they'd been talking about how her sister was gonna spend it when they heard a funny little noise off to the side of the road. It kinda sounded like a baby crying. They knew the place 'cause they'd been berry picking here before. The land beside the road fell away gently and sloped down toward the creek, moving through the area she was in now. On the way down was a riot of flowers, as Pa liked to say, and dozens of blackberry bushes. She'd gotten more than her fair share of thorns in her fingers for picking them, but the berries were always plump and juicy here and sure were worth it.

Sometimes it seemed the things that hurt you the most were the ones that meant the most too.

Of course when she'd heard the noise she'd taken off like a shot down the slope to see what it was. It hadn't taken Mary two seconds to start yelling at her that she was being foolish, that she needed to look before leaping, and that she was gonna get her hide tanned for ripping her clothes and making them late. Laura sighed as she took another step forward.

Sometimes it seemed like she had _two_ Mas.

Carefully putting her foot down in a place surprisingly clear of thorns, Laura found a new purchase and then peered into the descending dark.

"There's somethin' movin'. I can see it. I think it's caught in the bushes."

"What is it?" Mary called.

Laura rolled her eyes. If she'd of known what it was, then she would have _said_ what it was. "I don't know yet. That big old willow tree is casting big old shadows." Narrowing her eyes she looked for another partially clear spot. Finding one, she lifted her right foot and put it in it. Then she lifted her left – and heard her stocking rip.

She sighed.

Well, there went that orange in her Christmas stocking.

Lifting her foot anyhow, she put her it down next to the other one and then leaned forward, peering into the shadows. "There's definitely somethin' moving, Mary. Looks kind of fuzzy and brown. Maybe it's a puppy." She inched closer and as she did the little animal began to whine with fear. "Hush," she said, "hey, it's okay. I ain't gonna hurt you. You're..."

Laura sucked in a breath.

"What is it?" her sister asked instantly.

She was looking at the little thing. It was all caught up in berry branches like it had rolled in a bail of barbed wire. Little beads of blood dotted its light brown coat and it was howling to wake the dead.

"It's a bear cub," she said.

Mary gasped. "Laura, get out of there!"

"It ain't gonna hurt me," she replied.

"No, but it's _mama_ will if she finds you there and it's howling like that. You get back up here now! _Now_ , Laura!"

"But it's bleedin'..."

"For Gosh sakes, Laura! It's mama's gonna smell that blood! You know what pa told us about grizzlies. You back out of there now!"

She eyed the poor little thing. It had stopped howling and was staring at her just as hard as she was staring at it. Then she saw it turn its little head. It made a funny little bleating noise, kind of like a lamb, and started to struggle again.

It was then she heard it. A huffing noise and the sound of something running hard through the trees, charging, crashing through the undergrowth and heading straight toward her.

"Laura, get out of there!"

For some reason, she couldn't move. It was like her legs had been planted in that berry patch just as sure as those tall stalks of corn were planted in Pa's field. As Mary continued to scream hysterically, Laura continued to stare. It was about ten seconds later that she saw a big five hundred pound grizzly bear with a light brown coat break through the tree-line in front of her. It halted, reared up on its haunches, and bellowed.

Terrified, Laura turned. She was about to run when a man's voice shouted.

"Stay where you are! Stay still!"

A second later the man appeared. He was about Pa's size and had a head of curly shining hair that glinted as the dying rays of the sun struck it. He was wearing a bright green jacket and light-colored pants and had a holster tied around his left leg just like the gunfighters did in the newspaper pictures. He moved in-between her and the big animal and started yelling and waving his hands like he was trying to scare the she-bear away. She knew sometimes that bears were only bluffing, but she didn't think this was gonna be one of those times. That mama bear looked right mad. Even as the man reached toward the gun hanging on his hip, the grizzly crouched low and charged. Seconds later it plowed right into him. He threw his arm in front of his face when it hit, trying to keep her fangs off his throat. The bear caught it in her teeth as she drove him to the ground.

Mary shouted something and she turned and saw her sister running. Laura wanted to follow her but she just couldn't. Whoever he was, the man had just saved her life and she couldn't just leave him. Shaking like she'd been in the cold for hours, the little girl closed her eyes and turned back. Drawing a shuddering breath, she asked God to make sure the man was all right, and then she opened her eyes. The mama bear had the man's left leg in her mouth, holding it up around the thigh. She was shaking his body from side to side. Then, she just stopped and dropped him. That old bear turned to her cub and made a low noise in her throat. The little bear answered and then it wriggled free of the berry branches and ran away. Its mama watched it for a minute and then turned back to the man and nudged him with her nose.

Then she just walked away like nothing happened.

Laura was breathing so hard she was lightheaded, and shaking so hard she didn't know if she could take a step. The man was just laying there, not moving.

She was sure he was dead.

During the attack the sun had all but set, so it was hard to make her way over to him without hitting every thorn in her path. The berry bushes shredded her stockings and cut her legs as she went. Still she figured with how bad the man had to hurting – if he was still alive – that was nothing. Laura stopped and glanced back to make sure Mary hadn't reappeared . When she didn't see her sister, she started forward again. She'd seen an awful lot of things in her short life, from Minnesota to Kansas and back, but she hadn't ever seen a dead man other than one all dressed up and laid out in a coffin. She could smell blood as she approached him, and see that that pretty green jacket wasn't so pretty anymore. It was all stained with what looked like black spots, though she knew they were really red.

And growing.

The man's face was scratched, but the bear hadn't mauled it. His arm inside his ruined jacket looked like a big old mess. Worse than that, though, was his left thigh where the mama bear's teeth had taken hold of it. His gray pants were torn into pieces so you could see his skin was all ripped up underneath.

Laura bit her lip. She shuddered again and started to cry. It was all _her_ fault. If she hadn't been so goldarned certain she had to save that little cub, she wouldn't have needed rescuing, and then the stranger wouldn't have gotten killed.

And the cub didn't need saving after all!

Near sobbing, Laura fell to her knees and put her hand on the man's face. He startled her by moaning.

He _wasn't_ dead!

She reached down and took his hand in hers. It was covered in a black leather glove. The leather wasn't like Pa's work gloves. It was so soft and smooth it felt like skin. Reaching out with her other hand, she hesitantly touched his cheek.

"Mister?"

He moaned again but didn't open his eyes.

"Mister? Can you hear me?"

His lips parted slightly, like he was trying to answer.

"I think my sister went to get help. You just hold on, you hear?"

This time he sort of nodded.

Laura shook her head. "You were awful brave, takin' on that big old grizzly bear. That was just about the bravest thing I _ever_ seen." When he didn't react, she touched his face again and was rewarded by another moan. Her tears continued to flow. "I bet you're hurtin' awful bad. We'll have to get you to the Doc as fast as we can."

It was then she heard one of the most wonderful things she had ever heard in her _whole_ life.

Her Pa's voice.

"Half-pint! Where are you? Laura, you answer me! Answer me now!"

She stood up, still holding the stranger's hand. "I'm here, Pa. I'm over here! There's a man, Pa. He saved me, but he's hurt _awful_ bad!"

A second later she watched as her father broke through the trees. He was holding a lantern. It lit his face and right then, with that light shining up on him, he looked just like an angel out of the reverend's picture book. Pa halted and looked around as its soft glow reached out to touch her. When he saw her, he began to move forward.

Mary was right behind him.

Her pa came to her side and dropped to the ground beside the stranger. As he did, she looked at her sister. "Where'd you go?" she asked.

"I heard a wagon on the road. I didn't know who it was." Mary's gaze went to their pa. "Ma got worried and sent Pa after us. He was heading to the Masons."

Their father's hands were moving quickly over the stranger's supine form. Pa whistled once and then shook his head. "He's right lucky that she-bear was giving him a warning and not trying to kill him. Still, he's pretty bad off. She bit him, and it looks like dirt and maybe more got pushed into that wound when she did."

"Can we get him in the wagon, Pa?" Mary asked.

He looked up at her. "I need to stop the bleedin' first. You girls start tearin' strips off your petticoats." At their horrified look, he added quietly, "I'll settle it with your ma. This man's life is more important that a yard of cloth."

It took Pa about a half an hour to tie off the man's arm wound so it wouldn't bleed no more and then to make a splint for his leg. All the time he kept talking to the stranger, asking him questions and telling him he needed to stay awake. The man would moan and from time to time, say a word. There was only one they could make out. He kept saying 'Pa' over and over again. It was kind of funny 'cause she knew he wasn't talking about her pa even though he was right there.

He was probably calling for his own.

"Are you gonna take him to town to see Doctor Baker?" Laura asked as her father rose.

"The Doc's out of town. He went to pick-up supplies in Sleepy Eye and won't be back for days." Pa wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve. He was sweating. "We'll take him to our house where your ma can look after him. After that, I'll go to town and send a wire to Doc Baker." He glanced at the man again. "I think he needs to come back right away."

Laura looked at the man too. She couldn't see him well, but he looked so small and sad laying there on the ground all quiet-like.

"Is he gonna die, Pa?" she asked, her voice hushed.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Honestly, Half-pint," Pa replied, "only God knows." He bent then and took up the lantern. "I want you and Mary to stay here with him," he said. "I'm gonna go unhitch the horses. I'll put him on one and ride behind him. I want you two to ride the other one."

"What about the wagon, Pa?" Mary asked.

"I'll come back for it in the morning. I'd take him in it, but I need the horse to get him up the hill and I don't want to move him anymore than I have to. It might start the bleedin' again to try to get him in the wagon."

Darkness descended as her pa walked away. Standing there beside Mary, listening to the stranger moan, she was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. Her shoulders started shaking and she began to cry.

Mary came close and put her arm around her. She pulled her in real tight and held onto her as the two of them waited for their father to return. He appeared a few minutes later leading one of the horses. Laura took the lantern from him and held it up high as she could while Mary helped their pa lift the man up and onto the horse's bare back. Her sister kept hold while Pa climbed up behind the stranger, and then the two of them followed as he walked the animal back to the road. Her sister helped her up onto the other horse and then used a boulder to climb on its back.

Then the three of them and the man who had saved her headed for home.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Caroline had been peering out the window by the door for some time, waiting for Charles and the girls to appear. She'd been looking for Mary and Laura to come back from the Masons when Charles arrived home from his work at the mill. He'd agreed with her that it was getting too late for them to walk. Her handsome husband had grabbed a couple of pieces of bread and headed out the door almost before he made it all the way in. She was sure nothing was wrong. The girls had probably started out late. She knew how much Laura liked to play with Jennie Mason. Still, even though Walnut Grove was about as safe a place as there was for children to grow up in, there were untold dangers awaiting two young girls traveling alone after dark on the road.

As she dropped the curtain back into place, the blonde woman glanced into her youngest girl's room. Carrie was already asleep. She'd had a long day, poor thing. It started out that morning when their youngest had accidentally locked the outhouse door behind her, progressed through a fall from a stall wall into the cow pen, and ended with a disastrous visit to the creek where Carrie tumbled in and ruined her clothes. Caroline sighed. She was afraid she'd yelled at her about that last one. Money was so tight, it was all they could do to afford two sets of dresses and underpinnings for all the girls. She had a few scraps left over from a shirt she had made Charles.

She wondered idly what Carrie would look like in a dress made of that rugged blue and green plaid!

Crossing back to her rocking chair in front of the fire, Caroline picked her Bible up and sat down. Her evening prayers had driven her to a heartrending passage and she had put it down for a time, admittedly disturbed. Opening the worn book, she read Psalm Thirty, verses eight to ten once more.

' _I cried to thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper.'_

Caroline closed it again and placed her hand on the worn leather surface, wondering just _who_ the plaintive words were for.

Unexpectedly, she heard the sound of horses' hooves striking the ground in the yard instead of wagon wheels rolling over it. Rising quickly, the blonde woman crossed to the door and threw it open and stepped outside. The moon was high now. She could see her two girls seated on the back of one of their team. Charles followed close behind on the other one.

He was holding someone in front of him.

"Charles, what happened?" she asked as she stepped off the stoop and approached him.

"No time now. I'll tell you about it when we get him settled," he said, his voice ragged. "Help me get this man off the horse and into the house. He needs help _now_."

Without another word she stepped up to help him, holding the man on the animal's back while Charles slipped off. Her husband grunted as he took hold of the stranger and pulled him down and then lifted him in his arms. They were about the same size, she thought, though Charles was more muscled. The stranger had silver-gray hair, but the body of a young man, so she wasn't entirely certain how old he was. He seemed a little bit younger than Charles.

His face, left arm, and leg were covered in blood.

"Grizzly," her husband offered in explanation as he carried him toward the house.

In spite of the fact that the action should have caused the stranger pain, he didn't make a sound. He must be unconscious, poor thing.

Looking at him, it was probably a mercy of God.

As they passed into the house, Charles said, "We'll put him in our bed for now. You can sleep with the girls tonight."

"Where will you sleep?" she asked as they reached the kitchen.

"I'm heading back into town. It isn't too late. If I can rouse Nels, I'll get him somethin' for the pain. Then I'm headin' out to Isaiah's. I'm hopin' Grace is up. If she is, I'm gonna have her send a letter in the morning to Doctor Baker in Sleepy Eye."

"Oh, that's right," she said as they reached the bedroom. "Hiram's away."

Charles grunted as he lowered the wounded man to their bed. Placing his hand under the man's head, he rested it gently on the pillow. Then he stood back and let out a long sigh.

"Is he still breathing?" she asked. She hadn't seen any movement since they'd taken him off the horse.

Charles sat beside the stranger. Leaning over, he placed his ear on the man's chest and listened. Finally he nodded. "He's breathin'. His heart's beatin' mighty fast. Kind of thin and thready."

She had always feared that Charles would come home in this condition from hunting one day. "You said it was a grizzly?"

"Yes." Her husband turned and looked toward the other room where their girls were waiting. "Whoever he is, we owe him a lot. He saved Half-pint's life."

"Oh, dear God!' she exclaimed as her hand flew to her lips.

Charles rose and took her in his arms. His breath was warm against her cheek as he spoke. "Mary caught me on the road. She was cryin' and scared. She told me there was a bear cub trapped in some berry bushes and that Laura was tryin' to help it." He smiled. "You know Half-pint, she was worryin' over it. The mama bear charged her and this man stepped in."

Caroline looked over her husband's shoulder at the stranger. "Who is he, Charles? Where did he come from?"

"I didn't see a horse. Bear probably scared it off. There might be somethin' in his pockets." He shook his head. "There's no pullin' his clothes off with those injuries. We'll have to cut them off and we can check his pockets then." He stared at the injured man. "I don't want to try to move that arm or leg, Caroline, but those wounds need cleaned. I didn't have any way to do it on the road." Charles shook his head. "Odds are, infection's gonna set in. I don't see much hope unless we can get Doc Baker back here soon."

"You go ahead, Charles. Mary can help me get his coat and shirt off and clean the wounds to his upper body and face. I'll send her out to boil some water while I remove the rest of his clothes and finish up with his leg." The blonde woman moved to the side of the bed and looked down at the wounded man. The moonlight spilling in the window struck his face. In spite of that silver-grey hair, she'd been right, he _was_ young. His face was still unlined and actually quite handsome. Caroline sat beside him and shoved a matted mass of curls off his bloody forehead.

Her breath caught.

"What is it?" Charles asked, moving closer.

She looked up at her husband and then back at the man, and then up at Charles again.

"Why, Charles! He could be your younger brother."

Her husband nodded. She could see he had noticed the resemblance already. "My younger brother doesn't look a _bit_ like me," he said with a hint of an ornery smile.

She batted his hand. "Get out of here. I have work to do."

He snorted and then leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Love you too. I'll be back soon."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

When Charles emerged into the kitchen he found Mary sitting alone at the table.

"Where's your sister?" he asked as he cast his gaze around the darkened interior.

"She said she had to go to the privy. She's awful upset, Pa. She thinks it's all her fault." His daughter's ice blue eyes went to the corridor he had just left behind. "Is he gonna die?"

"Not just yet," he said, resting a hand on her shoulder, "and if God's willin', not at all."

"Who do you think he is, Pa?"

"At the moment, I think he's a man in need," he replied. "That's all we need to know."

"Did you notice..." Her voice fell off.

"Notice what?"

"He was wearing a gun, Pa. Tied down to his leg."

"So?"

Mary's eyes were troubled. "Isn't that what gunfighters like the James' brothers do?"

Charles lifted his hand. "Not every man who ties his gun to his leg is an outlaw, Mary."

"But what if he _is?"_

He briefly touched her face. "He could be Jesse James himself, Mary, and we'd still owe him a debt. No matter who he is or what he's done, he saved your sister's life."

At that moment Caroline's voice rang out. "Mary, I need your help."

He lifted his hand. "There, your Ma's calling' you. You go help her, and don't you worry about who that man is. It's goin' to be a long time before it matters. _If_ he makes it, he's got a lot of healin' to do."

"Yes, sir," she said as she rose from her chair. Mary took a couple of steps toward the hall and then turned and came back to give him a hug. "I love you, Pa," she said against his shirt.

"I love you too, darlin'." Charles kissed her shining hair. "Now, go help your ma."

The brown-haired man watched until Mary disappeared into the passageway and then went to the front door. Opening it, he stepped out into a brilliant wash of moonlight. It didn't take him long to spot Laura. She was sitting on the stump to the right of the pile of firewood that he and Caroline sometimes occupied.

He crossed over to her and stood there for a moment before saying anything.

"Mm-mm," he said at last, looking up and not at his child. "It's a mighty pretty night."

Laura wasn't looking up, she was looking down. Her elbows were on her knees and her chin rested on her rolled up fingers. "I don't see what's so pretty about it," she muttered.

"Mind if I sit down?" he asked.

She shook her head and then scooted over so he could sit beside her on the stump.

After a few moments of silence, he said, "You're worried about the stranger."

He could see her little shoulders shaking. It took her a few seconds, but she managed a nod.

"You're afraid he's gonna die, is that it?"

"Oh, Pa!" she exclaimed, finally looking at him. "He wouldn't be hurt if it wasn't for me. I shouldn't have tried to help that baby bear. I should have just left it alone like you told us. It was just..." She sniffed and tears rolled down her cheeks. "I thought it was gonna _die."_

He nodded. "You're right. You should've left it alone." Charles paused. "Did you learn from your mistake?"

"I sure did, Pa, only...only...that don't help _him_ any."

Charles took her hand in his. "Half-pint, one of the hardest lessons we have to learn is that there are consequences for our actions. Now, I know you didn't mean for that man to get hurt, but the choice you made had a part in it happenin'." At her horrified look, he added softly, "Still, whether or not he lives or dies isn't up to you or me. It's up to God. All the days ordained for you and me were written in God's book long before the first one of them came to be."

"That's from the Psalms, ain't it?"

He nodded. "One-thirty-nine. You know, Half-pint, the number of that stranger's days were written in God's book too before he was born. He ain't gonna die unless God wants him to. You can't take that on yourself."

Her voice was very quiet. "It's hard not to, Pa."

He rose to his feet. "I know. Best thing you can do now is stop sittin' out here feelin' sorry for yourself and go in there and ask your ma if there is anything you can do to help him. There's gonna be a load of work takin' care of that man and the only thing you can do for him now is be a part of it." Charles laid a hand on his daughter's brown head. "You understand what I'm sayin'?"'

Laura stood too. "Yes, sir," she said, her voice brightening a bit.

"Charles?"

He raised his hand from Laura's head and turned toward the door. Caroline was coming out of the house. She had a piece of paper in her hand. As she held it out to him, he noted it was half-ruined with blood.

"I found it in his coat pocket. It seems to be a list of names," she said in explanation. As he took it, his wife's finger pointed to one of the two that was partially obscured by the brown-red stains. Enough of it was showing to make out at the Christian name and the first initial of the man's surname.

 _Lars H_., it said.

Charles sighed.

It seemed there would be a fourth stop on the long road to his bed tonight.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Caroline was waiting up for Charles. It was well after ten and he had been gone about three hours, but then, considering what he needed to accomplish – waking Nels, traveling out to the Edwards and connecting with Grace, returning to town and talking to Lars – she didn't really expect him until midnight.

Maybe later.

The girls were in bed and, she hoped, fast asleep. Laura had spent about an hour sitting at the stranger's bedside watching over the young man, holding his hand and talking to him like she did to her children when they were sick. It was sweet and sad at the same time. Laura felt terribly guilty about what had happened.

She hesitated to think what it might do to her sweet girl if the man died.

While Laura sat on the bed, Mary stood at the back of the room, staring at the forlorn figure on the bed. Caroline's lips curled in a little smile. Even though he wasn't all that much to look at right now with all the bruises and swelling, it was obvious he was a handsome man and she thought her oldest daughter might be just a _bit_ smitten. It was one of those times when she was grateful for the large gap between their ages. While Mary was attracted to him, the man himself was old enough to be her father and would no doubt find her attention either irritating or amusing once he came back to himself.

She turned to look at the room where he lay.

 _If_ he came back to himself.

Caroline put down her sewing and rose from her chair and headed for the sick room. The last time she had checked on the young man he had been developing a fever. She'd brewed a bit of Feverfew tea in the hopes that she could get him to sip some when he woke up. Unfortunately, so far, he had not awakened and lay like one dead. His visible injuries were bad enough – a terribly torn arm, the ragged chewed leg, contusions and scratches over most of his body – but it was the internal injuries they feared. From what Laura said, the bear, which had probably weighed four or five hundred pounds, had slammed into the stranger full force and driven him to the ground. He had a great deal of bruising on his chest and abdomen that could be indicative of trouble within.

With care, she sat on the bed beside him. If he was sleeping naturally, she didn't want to wake him and at the moment she couldn't be sure. From that position she studied him. He was young. She'd put his age at thirty at most. More likely in his late twenties. His hair was thick and curly as Charles' and had as many shades of gray in it as a moonlit night. The thick strands went from white to a dark gun-metal shade, and all of it was shot through with silver. He was of an average height and well-proportioned; well-muscled too, though it seemed he might have lost bulk of late. He had about him the look of someone who has just weathered some kind of storm. At the moment he was wearing little more than his skin. She couldn't dress him without help. It would have caused him too much pain.

She hoped he wasn't too cold.

Leaning over Caroline gripped the top blanket, which had slipped down, and began to draw it up about his shoulders. She stopped at the sight of the right one. For such a young man he was covered with scars. He had obviously been shot and more than once. Taking hold of one of his hands, she noted that both had shiny smooth places with no color. They had been burned and not all that long ago.

She also noted as she touched him that his skin was incredibly hot.

Releasing his hand, Caroline leaned in and placed her own on the stranger's forehead. His fever was definitely rising. Between the bear's saliva and the fact that hair and other debris had been driven into his wounds, there had been little hope they could keep any infectivity contained. They really needed Doctor Baker. A regular illness was something she knew how to treat, but this was a different _kind_ of infection.

As she tucked the blanket under his chin, the wounded man stirred. He moaned and his eyelashes fluttered, but he didn't open his eyes.

Caroline touched his arm. "You're safe," she said, seeking to reassure him. "Nothing will harm you here."

His eyes rolled beneath the lids. He tried to shift and groaned when he couldn't. A moment later his eyes opened and his lips quirked at the end in a little smile.

"What...hit me?" the stranger asked, his voice no more than a whisper.

Caroline was fighting for composure. With the exception of the color of his hair, it was like looking at Charles ten years before.

Even his eyes were green!

After a second, she replied, "A grizzly bear, I'm afraid."

"A bear...?" For a moment he was silent. Then, he grew agitated. "The...girl. There was...a little girl. She –"

"She's safe." She touched his cheek and waited until his eyes found her. "That was my daughter. You saved her. It's how you were hurt."

He licked his lips. "Dang fool...kid. Worried about...a...cub..."

She frowned. Taking his hand in hers, she squeezed it gently. "We're so sorry. Laura... Well, trouble just seems to find her."

Again, there was that little smile.

"My pa always...says the same about...me." His eyes were fevered and slightly unfocused. "Who...?"

"Caroline Ingalls," she said. "You're in my house. My husband Charles brought you here."

The stranger frowned. "Where's...here?"

He was weakening. It wouldn't be long before he was unconscious again.

"You're just outside of Walnut Grove."

"Black...walnuts..." he said as he began to drift off.

Caroline suddenly realized she'd missed an opportunity. The injured man had been awake and she hadn't thought to ask him his name. She felt awful, but she reached out and touched his face and tried to call him back. "Please. Tell me who you are. We need to let your loved ones know what's happened."

His silvered brows knit together in the center as if he was in pain. "No...one left..."

"There has to be someone. You mentioned your father."

"Too far...away..."

"A name then. At least give me a _name_ I can call you."

His lips parted. "My name...is Joe," he said.

A second later he was unconscious.

Caroline caressed his cheek as she would have one of her children's. Then she rose and went to the window and looked out at the black night, noting how crisp the stars were in the mid-autumn sky. At the moment the man in her bed was far from home and alone. He was severely injured and in danger of losing his life. But even more important he was _someone_ , and somewhere there were people who loved him and missed him in spite of what he said.

She smiled as she looked at him again. He was a stranger no more.

He was Joe.


	3. Chapter 2

TWO

Eighteen year old Jamie Hunter Cartwright left his room on the second floor of the Ponderosa ranch house behind as he moved to the top of the stairs. Once there he halted and listened to the tall case clock by the door chime the hour of midnight. He'd tried to sleep but for some reason found he couldn't. He wasn't usually one for nightmares, but tonight his sleep had been troubled by disturbing images that vanished as soon as he opened his eyes.

Images that, he was pretty sure, had to do with Joe.

He missed his older brother; physically now as well as in just about every other way. When he'd first met Joseph Cartwright, the silver-haired man had always had a ready laugh and seemed to be one of the most grounded and content men he had ever known. Oh, Joe had a heck of a temper. It was legendary as a matter-of-fact. He'd heard stories about it since he arrived at the Ponderosa and about all the trouble it had gotten Joe into when he was around his age. But it seemed, most of the time when Joe got mad, that there was a good reason for it. His 'mad' was usually not for himself but for someone else. Pa said Joe couldn't stand injustice. That he just couldn't it go when he thought something wasn't fair.

That probably explained why Joe'd been mad ever since... Well, ever since everyone died. First it had been big brother Hoss. Boy, he sure missed him too. Hoss had been just about the best big brother anyone could have wanted, always helpful and so understanding. With Hoss around you knew you were all right. Maybe that was what was wrong with Joe.

Maybe without Hoss he just couldn't be 'right'.

'Course then, it hadn't been very long after Hoss died that the fire happened. Jamie drew a sharp breath and tears entered his eyes as he considered the pain his brother had been through. He couldn't imagine losing _anyone_ in a fire – knowing that someone you loved was burning up and not being able to do anything about it. Joe'd almost died too, running back, trying to get into the house; getting all burned. He just hadn't been the same since... Since Alice and his baby died.

That was why Pa sent him away.

They'd talked about it a little. He didn't like to bring up Joe and how he was hurting because it made Pa hurt too, but sometimes it seemed the older man just needed to hear things in words. Even if they hurt, it seemed like saying them took the sting away for a little bit.

Still, it always came back.

After a few months it had seemed Joe was getting back to normal. He was working with the horses again and taking care of Ponderosa business. Joe smiled and laughed some, though not as much as before. It was about six months later – after that soldier Tanner hunted him down and tried to kill him – that the laughing stopped all together. Joe got quiet. _Real_ quiet. He'd go past his brother's room on the way to the privy and hear him pacing and talking low to himself all hours of the night. He never could make out the words. They were soft and low and sounded almost like a moan. And then Joe started to get angry. He got so angry he drove just about every one away. Everyone but Pa who said Joe needed time to heal, and that every man healed at his own pace and in his own way. So when Joe started to forget about his chores, when he didn't' feel like handling the family business – when he walked away from the horses – Pa said they needed to be patient and wait.

He's been all right with that, right up to the time he came down at four o'clock in the morning and found Joe sitting on the porch in Pa's rocking chair dead drunk. His older brother had a bottle of whiskey in his hand and it was near gone. Joe tried to hide it when he came out but he wasn't quick enough, so he confessed he'd been drinking hard and he'd been wrong to do it and swore he wouldn't do it again.

But he did.

It started happening so often that, just out of curiosity, he'd begun to open the liquor cabinet every couple of days to check and see how many of the bottles were empty or missing. One time Pa caught him doing it and boy, did he think he was gonna get a tanning. Only the fact that he'd just turned eighteen stopped it. He'd never really had a lot of interest in liquor and he was sure Pa knew that. Pa _had_ to know who was drinking the whiskey and the brandy. He just didn't want to admit it. He thought Pa would be mad at Joe too. But he wasn't. He was just sad.

 _Really_ sad.

Gripping the stair rail with his fingers, the young man began his descent. He'd gone by his pa's room and the older man hadn't been inside, so he figured he was sitting on the porch in that rocking chair, looking at the stars and thinking about things. Pa'd been doing that a lot since Joe left a little over a month before to check out the lumber industry in Minnesota. It was a long way to go. To him, it seemed traveling almost two thousand miles should have taken his older brother pert near to China! When he'd asked Pa about the time he spent outside, the older man told him he felt closer to Joe out under the stars, knowing that they might be looking at the same stars.

Jamie walked to the door and took hold of the latch. Pa was probably gonna skin him for being up so late, but he didn't care. For once _he_ needed to talk to someone. That nightmare still had a grip on him. Maybe because he couldn't remember it.

Or maybe because he remembered just _enough._

Opening the door, Jamie stepped outside.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ben was not surprised at all when he heard the door to the house open. Jamie was a sensitive boy and he probably felt it too – something in the air, some wind of _change._ The older man looked down at the piece of paper he held in his hand and sighed. Roy had brought it out earlier. His old friend was retired as a sheriff, but that didn't mean the sheriff in him had retired. Roy still haunted the streets of Virginia City watching for trouble and could often be found at the telegraph office sniffing out news. That was how Roy had come to volunteer to bring the message from his business associate Daniel Jacobs in La Crosse to him. It had arrived mid-afternoon.

TRAIN ARRIVED TWO DAYS BACK. STOP. JOE NOT ON IT. STOP. SHOULD WE START SEARCH? STOP.

Stop.

It was as if his heart had stopped when he read it. Oh, Joseph was a grown man and could take care of himself. The west was not so wild as it had once been and it was unlikely he would have run into any trouble on the train unless it had been robbed, which it hadn't. No, when he had sent his youngest boy off in search of himself he had feared only _one_ thing and it seemed it had happened.

Joe was not to be found.

Ben said nothing as Jamie came to his side and sat down. This young son, who was a man now, was all he had left. The boy was quiet and thoughtful and such a contrast to Marie's boy. He'd always known Joe felt things too deeply and feared Alice's death might be enough to break him. It had been hard enough when his own wives died – Elizabeth in childbirth, Inger through violence, and Marie as she rode her horse into the yard. But each time he had held the woman he loved in his arms as she passed to her reward, and he had had fine sons to ground him and give him a reason to continue living.

Ben lowered his eyes and closed them. His son's arms had been empty – were empty.

Joe was empty.

Joseph hadn't said anything when he left – he didn't have to. There was another deeper loss, even greater than that of his family that he mourned. It was evident in his son's face. It was there in the deep dark pools of Joe's green eyes. The loss was written in the lines that had formed at the edges of those always ready-to-laugh lips. It pulled them down into an unending frown and moved them toward the bottles of liquor he had found stashed in the barn and hidden in his son's room.

Joe had lost his way.

His son had lost his faith.

It took about five minutes of silence, but Jamie finally worked up the courage to ask, "What'd the telegram say, Pa?"

Jamie loved Joe. _Everyone_ loved Joe.

Everyone _but_ Joe.

"Your brother seems to have gotten off the train somewhere along the line. He didn't arrive in La Crosse as expected." Ben folded the paper and tucked it in his pocket. "I imagine he took a detour, maybe to do some sight-seeing. Or maybe he went to see my old friend Lars."

"That the one in," he paused, "what was it? Elm Grove?"

Ben smiled. "Walnut Grove. It's a small town in Minnesota, not too far out from La Crosse."

"Who's Lars?"

"Lars Hanson. We met on the way out west and became friends during the time we traveled together. He went north to found Walnut Grove, while Adam and Hoss and I continued on to Nevada. Lars has been the city's mayor and is now the owner of a prosperous saw mill. I gave Joseph his name and told him to look him up if he had time."

"But wasn't there some meeting Joe had to go to first?"

Ben nodded. There was a sort of conference; a gathering of all the timber barons in the area and of those who were seeking lumber for a multitude of uses including town building, railroads, and mines. Joe was to represent the Ponderosa and its interests there. His travel plans would have brought him into town two days before the meeting. In other words, the meeting had been today.

And Joe had missed it.

"Yes, there was. Many of the men at that meeting have interests in the West. Among other things I sent Joe to get a feel for whether or not they would be willing to do business with us. The Cartwright name carries weight, son. There would be those who would come to us rather than use one of the companies in the East for their needs."

"Wouldn't that make the men back East sore? Like you're buttin' in or something?"

The boy was shrewd. "Maybe. But that's how it works. "

They fell silent again. Jamie lifted his head and looked at the sky. Several heartbeats later, he said, "I miss Joe. And not just 'cause he took the trip." His son's blue eyes flicked to him. "If you know what I mean..."

He knew all too well. It had been Joseph who had brought up the idea of going east though, at the time, he was fairly certain his son had no intention of actually traveling there. There had been an article in the paper about the burst of new ideas in Minnesota and how those innovations were powering the growing lumber industry there. Joe had said, at the table over supper, that new thinking and maybe new blood might help them turn a better profit. As he watched his son sink deeper into disorderly habits and despair, an idea had formed in the older man's mind. Maybe Joe just needed to get away – away from the Ponderosa and the constant reminders of all he had lost. New land and new people would give his mourning son a fresh perspective, remind him that he was _alive_ – maybe even get him interested in that life again. He had formulated a plan and laid it before Joseph and his son had agreed. Only one thing had held him back – one thing made him uneasy about letting him go. Joseph insisted on going alone.

And Joe had never _been_ alone.

Ben stood up. He placed a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "I know, son," he said. "Joe's been away for a long time. I had hoped... I hope this trip will return him to us in all the ways that matter."

Jamie's young face was turned up. On it was written a portion of his own misery.

"What if he doesn't ever come back?"

The older man drew a breath and held it. He had started this life with nothing but the skin on his back. He had married three times, to three wonderful women, and lost every one of them, but he had not _been_ lost. Each one left him with a son. Adam. Hoss. Joe. He'd had them with him, held them in his arms, loved them and taught them to be men, and then he had watched them leave one by one. His eldest by choice. Hoss, through death. And Joe...

Joe was still living but he might as well have been dead.

Ben drew Jamie to his feet and placed his arm around his son's shoulder. It was what he had told Joseph when he'd said goodbye as his youngest boy stepped onto the train.

"You must have faith, son. With it you can move mountains."

The white-haired man looked to the east. The words were for him as well.

 _You must have faith._

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Lars Hanson stood in the Ingalls' home, looking down at the injured man and shaking his head.

"Charles," he said, "I _haf_ no idea who he is. I _haf_ never seen this man before in my life."

He'd gone to Nels' house first, but no one had answered when he knocked. Moving on to the Edwards he had roused Grace and Isaiah from their bed and explained his need, giving a letter to Grace so she could send it to Doctor Baker in Sleepy Eye first thing in the morning. Returning to town he had pounded on the Oleson's door again. By God's providence, the storekeeper had just come down to make certain he had locked the door. Nels let him in and gave him a small bottle of laudanum to ease the stranger's pain. Bottle in hand, he had gone on to Lars' home. When the older man answered, his nightcap on his head, he had apologized and explained why he was calling so late. At the end of the story he handed Lars the ruined paper with the dried bloodstains on it. Seeing his name, Lars agreed to return with him to their farm to take a look at the young man. The older man had brought his own wagon so he could go back on his own. It was a good thing.

He was about dead on his feet.

Caroline moved past them. She had just returned from fetching fresh cold water from the well. The injured man's fever had risen dangerously high. His wife said she'd gotten a little tea down him but it didn't seem to help much.

Charles sighed. Another couple of degrees and he'd be heading back to town for ice to pack the man's battered form in.

"You're sure?" he asked.

The older man nodded. " _Ja_. I _vould_ remember that face and hair."

Charles pulled the piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. He unfolded it and took another look. Lars' name was about all he could make out. There was another, nearly illegible. 'Benson' or something like that.

"Has he told you his name?" Lars asked.

"It's Joe," Caroline said as she put the bucket on the bedside table and then sat down on the bed by the restless man. "He told me just before he lost consciousness."

" _Joost_ Joe? No last name?"

She shook her head. "I tried to get him to tell me his full name so we could wire his relatives." She dipped a cloth in the cold water and placed it on the man's forehead. "He said there was no one left, but I didn't believe him."

"I _vonder vhat_ happened to his horse," Lars said.

Charles looked at the older man. "What?"

"He had to _haf_ a horse or a _vagon,_ didn't he? Unless he _valked_ all the _vay_ to town from the train station."

"I didn't see anything, but then it could have been scared off by that grizzly." Charles paused and then added with a rueful smile, "I know _I_ would have been."

"If that is true, then it might still be in the _voods_ ," Lars said. "I _vill_ go back to town and first thing in the morning, I _vill_ take some men and go look for it."

Charles nodded. "I'll come with you."

Lars shook his head. "You _vill_ do no such thing. Go to sleep, Charles. You _haf_ done enough."

"Listen to him, Charles," Caroline said as she wet the cloth again and wrung it out. "You look exhausted."

It was near four o'clock in the morning. It would be time to get up in two or three hours.

Caroline left the cloth on the man's head and came to his side. Once there, she took his hands. "You've done everything you can. You brought him here and put him in your bed. You've got your family tending him. You sent for Doctor Baker and brought back something to help his pain until Hiram can get here. There's nothing else to do, Charles, except wait."

He didn't like waiting. He liked 'doing'.

His wife caught a blanket off the bottom of their bed and pressed it into his hands. "Go. Find some corner somewhere and bed down in it. The best thing you can do for this young man – and for yourself – is to get a few hours sleep. You'll be no good to _anybody_ if you don't."

"What about you?" he asked as he accepted the blanket.

"I slept a few hours in the chair. I'm fine."

The circles under her eyes had circles under _them_. "Oh, you're fine, are you?"

Caroline's hands went to her hips, which was always a bad sign. "Yes, I'm _fine_. Fit as a fiddle and ready to fly. While you look like you've just about broken every string." His wife shook her head. "Really, Charles, sometimes I think you believe you could save the world single-handed."

He stared hard at her. After a second, he said, "Are you tellin' me I can't?"

Placing her hand on his face, she pulled him into a kiss and then whispered in his ear. "Go to sleep!"

He gave her a half-salute. "Yes, Ma'am!"

She pointed at the passageway. "Now!"

"You have your orders, Charles," Lars snorted.

Yes, he did, and for once, he was going to obey them.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The world was on fire.

Everything – trees, grass, buildings, even the water was ablaze. The whole world was bathed in a hellish glow and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

When the water was on fire, what was left to put it out with?

Joe moaned and thrashed from side to side as a wall of flames rose up before him, shutting him out, keeping him back from saving the life that was burning up inside. He refused to believe it. Refused to give in, to stop. He ran through it and toward the burning house and took hold of the blazing hot handle and pulled for all he was worth.

All the time Alice was screaming. Their child within her was screaming.

' _Joe, save me! Joe!'_

' _Pa!_ '

He spent his strength throwing himself against that door, ramming his shoulder into it, pounding with his fists. As Alice screamed again, he redoubled his efforts, striking the wood that had turned to embers, thrusting his fingers through and into the flames until he was on fire as well.

 _God_ , he was on fire.

God, let me _burn_ with them.

God...

Something cool touched his forehead and for a moment, he resented it. Weakly, Joe raised a hand to chase it away. He didn't deserve it. He didn't save them.

He _couldn't_ save them.

"Mister?"

Like a man whose lungs had breathed smoke for so long he forgot the meaning of air, Joe gasped. His eyes flew open and his hand shot out, catching the one that hung suspended above his face. He held that hand tightly, as if it were a lifeline he dare not let go. Slowly his eyes focused on the fingers he clutched and he realized they belonged to a child.

Shamed, he let her go.

"Are you okay, Mister?" she asked.

Joe blinked and looked at her. She was a little girl, maybe eight years old. She had light brown hair and eyes and freckles. Her hair was pulled into two tight braids, one on either side of her head, and she was wearing a blue dress with a white pinafore over it.

She wasn't on fire.

Her small hand reached out. She laid it alongside his face. He almost shuddered with the cold touch.

"You're awful hot. Ma said you need to drink some water. Can you do that?"

He was staring at his hands. There was no fire there either. As the girl continued speaking, Joe's gaze went to the window and the world outside. The sky was blue. There were white clouds. He could hear birds singing.

It wasn't fair.

A second later he felt one of her little hands touch his hair. She pressed a tin cup to his lips with the other. He didn't want it, but he didn't want to hurt her so he drank a little. The water was so cold it stole his breath and set him to coughing.

"I'm sorry, Mister," she said, her voice a worried whisper. "I didn't mean to hurt – "

"Didn't..." he rasped. "Thank...you."

The girl beamed. "Hey! You're awake!"

So she'd been talking to him, caring for him, when she thought he was asleep. That said something for her tenaciousness.

"Joe," he said.

She blinked. "Joe?"

"Call me...Joe."

The smile returned. "I like that. Joe. Joseph, like Jesus' pa."

 _Pa_. The word held everything in it he needed and everything he must deny in order to keep his sanity.

Joe turned his face toward the wall.

The girl was silent a moment. "I'm sorry, Mister...Joe, if I made you sad."

' _Made_ ' him sad.

How could she make him something he had _become?_

Drawing a deep breath, he turned his face toward her. "Who...?"

She started and then pointed toward her chest. "Who am I?"

He nodded – marginally. "Yes..."

"Laura. Laura Ingalls. Though Pa calls me 'Half-pint' on account of I'm so small."

With a faint smile he said, "My mama called me... _Little_ Joe."

"'Cause you were small too?"

That made him laugh. "Still...am..."

Laura fell silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice shook. "I'm sorry, Joe."

He knew for _what_ – for putting him in the path of that angry mama bear. "I'm...not," he said.

The little girl frowned. "You're not?"

" 'Bout time...I waltzed with...a grizzly..."

"Laura." The voice was deep. Not angry, but on the edge of it. "Are you wearin' our guest out?"

Guest.

"Sorry, Pa."

Oh, God _. Pa._

"Half-pint, your Ma needs help fixin' dinner." Joe watched as the man, just outside of his vision, bent over and kissed the little girl on her head. "You go now. Tell her I'll be there soon."

"Yes, sir."

Joe felt the girl rise. Felt the emptiness left by her going. Felt the man's weight bend the bed ropes as he took her place. Joe heard water being wrung from a cloth and then felt the cool relief as the man placed it on his hot forehead.

"How are you feelin'?" he asked.

Joe's jaw tightened. Lost. Empty. Hopeless.

"Fine," he said.

"Oh. Well, if you don't mind my saying so, you don't look 'fine'." The man paused. "You got quite a fight on your hands. Are you up to it?"

Honesty. How refreshing.

Joe's lips quirked. "No."

The man paused. "Well, I'm here to tell you that I ain't exactly pleased with the thought of you dyin' in my bed. Maybe you could get better so we could move you before you give up."

There was a hint of humor in his tone, but he was serious.

Joe turned his head to look at the man and froze.

His host snorted. "Scary, ain't it?"

It could have been him. Older. With hard-won wisdom crinkling the skin at the edge of his eyes and plowing lines at the corners of his lips. The man's hair was the color his had been years before and his eyes were just as green.

It was like looking into the future.

"Who?"

The brown-haired man smiled. "Charles. Charles Ingalls. My wife tells me you're Joe. Care to tell me 'Joe' who?"

He turned his head away.

Charles was silent a moment. "All right. I'd hate to have to bury you with no last name on the stone and no way for your family to find out what became of you, but I won't press you. At least for now. But Joe..."

He waited until he looked at him.

"If anything you _are_ threatens my family, I promise you, you'll answer to me. You understand?"

He knew that tone. Those words.

This kind of man.

Joe nodded even as the flames rose up before his eyes again, brilliant, bright, burning; tantalizingly dark.

"Okay," he said.

"Pa."


	4. Chapter 3

THREE

Charles took the girls to the Edwards' the next morning. During the night Joe had taken a turn for the worse. The injured man woke them all with his raving. In no time at all Carrie was crying out of fear and he found Laura and Mary – though they had been exposed to illness and death before – huddled together in the loft, their sweet faces streaked with tears. It was apparent Joe had come to some sort of crisis point and just as apparent that he might not make it through. The small amount of laudanum Nels had given him was gone and there was nothing to dull the pain, and so the injured man screamed out in his delirium, calling for someone named Hoss and for his pa.

And a woman named Alice.

Charles looked up as Caroline entered the sick room. He was bodily holding the man on the bed. Sweat poured down his face, plastering his brown curls to his cheeks, stinging in his eyes. He was afraid to let go. Joe had already tried to rise from the bed once, putting an unbearable strain on his wounded leg, opening the tear in his flesh again and setting it to bleeding.

His wife placed a fresh bowl of cold water by the bed. Her eyes were haunted with lack of sleep and by compassion.

"Oh, Charles. He's so sick."

He nodded as the man quieted momentarily and he was able to sit back. "There's nothing to do, Caroline, but pray."

She glanced at the window. "Do you think Doctor Baker is on his way?"

Charles sighed. "If God is watching."

He felt her hand on his shoulder. She waited until he looked up at her. "Charles, you know He is."

Reaching up, he covered his wife's hand with his own. "I know." The brown-haired man's eyes went to the restless figure on the bed. "It's not just the fever or the bear attack, Caroline. I don't think Joe _wants_ to live."

"But he's so young."

He rose and took her in his arms. "There's somethin' dark gnawing at his soul. I'm not sure, but I think there was somethin' – some _one_ he lost – a wife, a child." Charles paused. "Maybe both."

Caroline moved past him and went to sit on the other side of the bed. She reached out and pushed the tousled mass of silver-grey curls off of the injured man's forehead.

"He needs a reason to live. Something or someone to fight for instead of to mourn." She paused and then looked at him. "I know you're worried about her, Charles, but maybe Laura..."

"Charles! Caroline!"

They turned in unison toward the door.

It was Doctor Baker.

A moment later the golden-haired man appeared in the passage leading to their bedroom. As he removed his coat, he asked, "I thought maybe it was one of you. Thank God, it's not. Who's this?" the doctor asked as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves.

"All we know is Joe," Caroline responded as she rose from the bed.

"Nels told me you had come for laudanum. A she-bear attack, he said."

"We did our best to clean and bind his wounds, Hiram." Charles shook his head. " 'Fraid it didn't help much."

"It may have. Just because there's fever, doesn't mean it couldn't have been worse," he said as he sat on the bed and reached out to lay a hand on the sick man's forehead. After that he lowered the coverlet and examined Joe's wounds, ending with the leg. After replacing the covers the doctor looked over his shoulder and said, "Charles, I think you better go for ice. From the look of that leg wound, the fever's going to go higher before it falls – if it does."

"Do you think he has a chance?" Caroline asked.

The blond man smiled. "There's always a chance. It's up to God and him."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He'd found as many barrels as he could and then gone to the ice house. After filling them, he placed them in the back of his wagon and covered them with a tarp. It was a crisp cold morning and so he knew they would keep while he finished a few other chores. Doc Baker had asked him to go to his office while he was in town to pick up some supplies and a change of clothes for him. As he was coming out of the office, Charles ran into Lars Hanson who was headed to the Oleson's mercantile.

When Lars saw where he was coming from, the older man asked, "Did Hiram make it out to your place, Charles?"

"Earlier this morning. He came straight out without stopping in town. That's why I'm here gathering some of his things."

"How is the young man?"

He shook his head. "Sick. Real sick."

"You know, Charles, I've been thinking. That other name on the list..."

"Other name?"

"Benson."

He'd forgotten about it. "It mean something to you after all?"

"I'm not sure." The older man shook his head. "But I _haf_ been thinking. Maybe it _vas_ not Benson, but 'Ben's son'."

He considered it. "Maybe, but that doesn't get us anywhere."

"Perhaps." Lars had a curious look on his face. "Come _vit_ me, Charles."

"I've got ice in the wagon. I'd best be going."

"It's important, Charles. It _vill_ only take a minute."

The brown-haired man nodded and then followed his friend and employer to the mill office. Once inside, Lars went immediately to the desk and opened the drawer.

"I received this several months back. I'd forgotten about it." When he straightened up, he had a letter in his hand. "It may be nothing, but..."

Charles took it. He looked at Lars and then at the envelope. It was addressed to Mister Lars Hanson and had several postmarks on it. Some were from as far away as Nevada.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A letter from an old friend. A _very_ old friend." Lars sat down behind the desk. He nodded. "Go ahead and read it."

Charles took the inner letter and opened it, noting how fine the paper was. The hand that covered it was a bold one with broad sure strokes, as if the man who penned it was a man of purpose. It was a letter of introduction from someone named Benjamin Cartwright.

The person he was introducing was his son. Joseph Francis.

"Benjamin and I traveled _vest_ together over forty years ago," Lars said. "He had two young sons _vit_ him at the time, one a motherless baby. _Ve_ parted ways _vhen_ I came to Minnesota."

Charles looked at him. "You think this is another son? One you never met?"

"I heard Benjamin married again. A _voman_ out of New Orleans." He shook his head. "There _vas_ some scandal attached to it."

He looked at the letter again and then he folded it and returned it to the envelope.

"Will you ask him?" Lars inquired.

"If I get a chance. There's no guarantee he'll live."

"Do you think _ve_ should send a letter to Benjamin?"

"No. Not yet. There's no proof yet that the man in my house is _this_ Joseph Francis Cartwright. And besides, if he is, he's old enough to make his own choices. He knows who and where he is and so far he's not sayin'." Charles looked at the other man. "Do you mind if I keep this?"

"Go ahead. Maybe you will have a use for it one day."

Charles nodded as he tucked it in his pocket.

"Maybe."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Doctor Hiram Baker rose from his vigil at the young stranger's side, stretched, and walked out into the Ingalls' kitchen, drawn by the scent of coffee brewing. The day had passed and night was falling. Charles had returned earlier in the day bringing the items he'd requested. They'd packed the young man in ice and it had helped to keep his fever from spiking. He'd slept in his old clothes by the side of the bed and only changed a short time before into the fresh suit Charles brought him. He'd done everything he could to alleviate Joe's suffering but it could only go so far. He didn't dare weaken the man by giving him drugs. He needed the strength to fight.

He needed a _will_ to fight.

"How is he?" Caroline asked as he emerged from the passage.

"Holding his own. The fever's broken several times, but gone right back up. The bite on his leg's infected." The man's skin was hot and the wound continued to ooze with a whitish discharge. There were red streaks running from his leg toward his heart. It was his fear that the bite was so deep complications might set in. "I've given him what medicine I can. It's up to his constitution now and, as I told Charles, to God."

"Will you go?"

He shook his head wearily. "No. It's too close yet." Hiram ran a hand through his disarrayed hair trying to tame it and smiled. "I could use a cup of that coffee and somewhere to lay my head for a few hours."

She smiled. "In that order?"

"Trust me," he laughed. "When you're a doctor it doesn't make any difference."

"You can lay down in Carrie's room," she said as she poured and then handed the coffee to him. "What do you need _me_ to do?"

"Keep watch. If Joe rouses and seems to be in pain or out of his head, call me. Otherwise, just try to make him as comfortable as possible." He took a sip and then asked, "Where's Charles?"

"He just got back. He's in the barn. Why? Do you need him?"

Hiram shook his head. "I just wanted to talk to him. It will keep until later." Handing the cup back to her, he said, "Thank you. Now, I think I'll go get some sleep while I can."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Caroline watched the doctor head for the room up front and then turned back to the stove. It took an hour or so to finish what she was doing and then she went into their room to check on Joe. She felt heartsick as she entered. It nearly broke her heart to see the young man covered with wet blankets and packed in ice. Not only did she feel deeply for him, but the sight brought back such horrific memories of the plague that had ripped through their town the year before, carrying off several of Walnut Grove's citizens. She went to the window and opened the curtain and looked out and then turned back to look at the injured man.

She was surprised to find him awake.

"Well, hello," the blonde woman said as she sat on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

He looked at her but he didn't see her. She realized then that, though his eyes were open, he was lost somewhere in a fever dream.

"Joe?" she called. "Joe?"

His cracked lips parted. "Thirsty..."

Caroline went to the other side of the bed where she'd left a cup. After filling it, she sat by him again. Placing her hand behind his head and entwining her fingers in his sweat-soaked hair, she lifted him up and placed the cup to his lips.

"How's that?" she asked as he finished.

A little smile appeared. "...good.

"You look a little better." It was true. Though Joe was hot to the touch, the color in his cheeks was not as high as it had been. After placing the cup on the table, she touched his forehead with the back of her hand. "I think your fever's down."

The smile had faded into a frown. He looked at her obviously confused.

The blonde woman took his hand. "Joe?"

He didn't pull away. Instead, feebly, his fingers tightened on hers. "Alice...how?"

"Joe, I'm not – "

"Caroline."

She turned to find Charles standing behind her. He shook his head. Then he nodded toward Joe.

At first she frowned and then, realizing what he meant, scowled. It seemed, well, unkind somehow. Still, she knew why Charles wanted her to do it. They were desperate to learn something – _anything_ – that would help pull this man back from the brink.

"Yes, Joe," she said at last.

His brows drew together as if he was puzzled. "Thought...you were...dead."

Tears entered her eyes. She squeezed his fingers. "I'm here."

For a moment Joe relaxed and then he began to breathe quickly. He tossed violently from side to side and a shiver ran the length of him. "No. ...fire. _Fire!_ Burning. _You_...were burning... No! Not _you._ Not the _baby_...inside you..."

Caroline was stricken. She turned to look at Charles and found him crying as well.

"You better let me take over," Hiram Baker's weary voice intruded. "Seems we've got another crisis on our hands."

She rose and made way for the doctor and then looked at Charles again. A moment later, unable to contain her sorrow, Caroline ran through the kitchen and out the door and into the yard. Once there she gave way to sobs that wracked her slender form.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles spotted her as soon as he stepped out of the house. Crossing to his wife, he took her in his arms. Soon he was caressing her head, shushing her and telling her it would be all right.

"Oh, Charles!" his wife sobbed against his shirt. "That poor man!"

He held her close. It had shaken him as well. Visions of his own house going up in flames with his wife and one or more of his babies trapped inside – himself unable to prevent it – had risen up before his eyes and nearly unmanned him.

"I know, Darlin'," he said, pressing his cheek against her hair. 'I'm sorry I had to put you through that, but we had to know. Maybe now we can help him."

"But his wife. His...child..."

He understood. It struck entirely too close to home for him as well. Their only son, Freddie, hadn't been dead a year yet. Still, as deep and as painful as that loss was, at least they had gotten to touch him and to know him for a little while. Joe was left with the emptiness of a man who never got to hold his child, and whose arms ached for a wife who was no more.

No wonder he didn't want to go on.

Taking his wife by the hand Charles led her over to the stump they often shared and sat her down. Dropping beside her, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Caroline laid her head on his shoulder. As she softly sobbed, he told her about something that had been forming in his mind ever since they'd carried the wounded man into their home.

"I think Joe was brought to us on purpose," he said softly.

She glanced at him and then returned her head to his shoulder. "By God, you mean?"

He nodded. "You feel it too?"

She took his hand. "He's so alone and so sad. Maybe we can help him."

"If he'll let us," he snorted.

"It's like any wounded thing, Charles. It's so frightened, it wants to hide." She drew a breath. "Joe is afraid. Afraid of life."

He sat a moment thinking, and then reached into his pocket and drew out the letter Lars had given him.

"What's that?" Caroline asked.

"The answer to who he is, I think," he replied.

His wife sat up. "Did you find his horse?"

"No. This came by way of Lars. It was sent to him some time back and comes from a Benjamin Cartwright of Nevada state. Seems his son Joe was traveling this way and he asked him to look in on Lars."

"Joe Cartwright? That's his name?" A hopeful smile brightened her cheerless face. "Charles, that's wonderful! Have you written his father?"

He stared at the letter. It was a hard call, but he felt he'd made the right one. "No."

"Why not? His family would want to know."

He pursed his lips and sighed. "I think Joe's running, Caroline, and – if he finds out we've sent for his father – then he'll just _keep_ running. Maybe... Maybe God landed him here so he could rest and, well, find himself."

She looked back toward the house. "He's going to have a long recovery with that leg wound."

He knew what she meant. If they accepted Joe into their home, he would be with them for quite some time. "Are you all right with him stayin'?" he asked. Most of the burden would be on her in the beginning, until Joe was well enough to be outside. "We don't really know him."

"Oh," she said, her voice wistful, "I think we know him well enough. He was willing to put himself in danger to save our child."

"Mary thinks he' one of the James' gang," he said, hiding his smile.

Caroline started and then sputtered. "An outlaw?"

"Wears his gun tied down."

Her eyes widened. "Charles, you don't think he could be – "

"No. I don't. And don't you go thinkin' it either. That letter was postmarked Nevada. He's a rancher, that's all. Things are different in the West."

"Charles," Doctor Baker called as he stepped out of the house. "Is there any more ice?"

He turned toward him. "In the sod house. Is Joe worse?"

The blond man's face was grim. "His fever's well over one hundred and two and climbing higher. If we don't get it down and he lives, he's liable to have damage to his brain." Hiram ran a hand over his chin. "I think this may be it. From here he'll live or he'll die. I just don't know."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ben Cartwright felt like a fool.

It was late at night, after another day with no responses to the multiple telegrams he had sent out about Joseph, and his wandering feet had brought him to Marie's son's room where he sat on the bed. He'd passed Jamie's room on the way and seen a light under the boy's door. He hoped that meant that he was reading and not that he _too_ was unable to sleep. Ben ran a hand over his face. This was interfering with his work. At sixty-five years old he couldn't afford sleepless nights.

How many had he had since Joseph was born?

It had started when Joe was a baby. His son had been small like his mother, delicate and fragile. But the boy had strengthened quickly and so had his lungs and the house rang for months with the sound of his independent cries. As a child Joe had alternately raced, bounced, and stormed through life. As a teenager, well, the joke about his own hair turning white due to this youngest son's antics had roots in the truth. As a young man he watched Joseph mature. All the fire of his youth was not damped or put out, but it became a refining flame that burned away the dross and left pure silver. Ben snorted. Including in his son's riotous untamed hair! By the time Joe had chosen to marry he was a man in every way, strong, confidant in himself, sure of his path in life and what he wanted – content in what he possessed.

And then... Ben drew a deep breath and looked up, past the ceiling above his head, past the sky and clouds, into Heaven itself.

Then, there was the fire.

The older man opened his eyes and slapped his hands on his knees as if to rouse himself, and then stood up and went to the window and looked out once again, wondering if his son – wherever Joe was – looked at the same rising sun.

He wondered if Joe was still alive.

It wasn't something he wanted to think about. In fact, he barely could. But Paul had been worried when Alice died that Joseph might try to take his own life. His son had seemed to be healing, but then came the terrible encounter with the mentally unstable Corporal Bill Tanner. Joe had been driven mercilessly, tormented and tortured and, worst of all, for no reason other than he had done his Christian duty by offering sustenance and succor to a fellow traveler.

His own faith in God was what had gotten him through the dark days in his life – the death of his wives, all the times his sons had gone missing and were presumed dead, the loss of two in the end. It had taken him through floods and fires; through storms both manmade and ones that were acts of God. Each time he believed that there was a reason for it, a higher purpose, whether it be to mold him or someone he loved into a better, higher, and finer type of man.

But this. This...

Ben's gaze shifted to the barn where their horses were housed, including his missing son's current incarnation of Cochise. He thought about the sight, years before, of watching Joseph break his first feisty mount in. Most times the taming of an animal's spirit – like the rearing of a spirited boy – brought about a maturity that was profitable to both the horse breaker and the animal itself. But there were those rare times when the animal's wild untamed spirit was such a part of it that, once broken, it was of no use anymore. Without that spark, it simply pined away.

Joseph was pining away.

Turning, Ben walked to the door of Joe's room and took hold of the knob. Without a backward glance, he entered the hall and headed down the stairs into the great room where a small fire still burned. The fact made him smile and yet feel sad at the same time. His nocturnal wanderings had become so commonplace that Hop Sing always kept it burning, at least until the pale fingers of dawn crept through the window. They were there now, caressing the back of the old blue velvet chair that was a fixture by the hearth. Ben crossed to it and sat down. Reaching over, he took his Bible up from where he had left it laying on the hearth and opened it to the passage he had been reading the night before. This well-worn friend – ancient now with its whisper-thin pages notched from use and stained at the edges with years of trail dust and a father's tears – had been his constant companion through all the hours of trial he had had to endure. It was a much a part of him as his eyes, his lips, his heart and his lungs. Without the Word of God a man could not see or speak. He couldn't feel or breathe. He was made deaf and dumb; left unfeeling and uncaring.

He'd found his son's Bible in his room. Joseph had left it behind. His youngest boy had never been one to open the book daily or to study it by the hour. Joe was a man of feeling and for him God was everywhere and in everything, in this house he lived in, in the land he was born to, and in the people he loved. Sadly at this moment, from what he had seen, his son's faith in a loving Father was as dead as the wife and child he had buried in the meadow nearly two years before.

Ben ran his fingers across the aged paper. He found the verse where he had left off the night before. It was near the end of Hebrews in chapter ten.

 _For yet a little while, and he that shall come shall come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Bu we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul._

The older man closed the book with his finger still in it and bowed his head. As he placed his other hand on its battered surface, his lips began to move.

"Lord, it's Ben, the child You love. I come to You this night in humility, asking for the life of the child _I_ love. Father, hard as it is, I accept that there is a reason Joe is in this place, but he's so lost, Lord, so alone. So scared. I'm..." Ben drew a sharp breath and let it out slowly. "I'm afraid for him. I'm afraid he will try to do harm to himself, or that he'll simply give up and fade away." The older man straightened in his chair. "I know, Father, that this is not what You want, that Joseph is a unique creation and You have allowed him to pass through this fire – through so _many_ fires – in order to make him into a man after Your own heart. As it says in Isaiah, You have refined him, but not as silver. You have chosen him in the furnace of affliction." His voice choked as an image of Joe going up in flames came before his eyes. He closed them even tighter, accepting blindly that the fire his son was going through at this moment was _of_ God and not of the enemy. "Let him walk through the fire and not be burned, but only strengthened. Wherever he is, Lord, bring strong people of faith into his life to support him. Amen."

Ben felt a tear land on his gnarled hand. He drew a breath like he was coming up for air and opened his eyes. He'd had no idea he was crying.

A quiet voice, always there but never intruding, spoke from close by. "Mistah Ben need anything Hop Sing can bring?"

He looked at his old friend and shook his head.

No.

Not unless he could bring him Joe.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles had risen early from his bed of hay in the barn and gone into the house. After looking in on his sleeping wife and daughters, he went to the sick room and checked in with Doctor Baker. The weary physician told him it had been a long night and, while Joe was not out of danger, he was holding his own. After grabbing a cold breakfast from the larder and downing a little of the cold coffee in the pot, he'd headed back outside to begin the day's chores. It was early morning and the world outside was hushed in anticipation of the new day. The breaking rays of the rising sun streamed through the line of trees at the edge of their property, reaching with fiery pink fingers toward the house he had built, turning all that God had given him to gold. It was a rare moment, peaceful and unhurried, and Charles found himself humbled. He put down the bucket he had picked up when he intended to head to the well, and walked out into the bountiful field of corn and sat down amidst the ripening stalks. There were so many things that raced through his mind as he sat there. At first they turned on the family's needs and wants. On the girls safety and how they were growing. On Caroline and all the work she had to do. Then, his mind went to the injured man laying in his bed. Who _was_ this man God had deposited on their doorstep? Why was Joe Cartwright here? Was there something the Lord wanted him to do? Some way he could ease Joe's burden?

Something only _he_ could provide?

Closing his eyes there in the midst of his crops, Charles bowed his head, admitted his sin, offered himself, and waited.

Into the silence came an early morning breeze that rustled his curly brown hair. The still small voice it contained spoke to him, bringing visions of a sad but resolute older man with pure white hair sitting by a fire. His hand was on his well-worn Bible and his eyes were turned toward the waxing sun. The man's lips were moving. He was praying.

Praying for his lost son.

Charles turned his palms upward and rested them on his knees, entreating God's wisdom. This man, Benjamin Cartwright, was hurting. He had it in his power to relieve Joe's father's pain – to send him word of his son's whereabouts – but at what price? If Joe lived, he would be little more than a dead man walking – his spirit broken, all hope lost. It was autumn; the season of dying, when all things turned to dust and returned to the earth. Hope was born in the spring as green shoots pushed up through the remnants of the cold white blanket that lay upon the land. _'He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes'_ , he thought, hearing the words of the Psalm.

And then other words came to him. This time from Lamentations. ' _He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth with gravel stones, he hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity.'_ Charles shifted and opened his eyes. Looking up, he contemplating the dawning day with all its promise. ' _It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD._

' _It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.'_

No, he would not wire Joe's father. Not yet. Right now Joseph Cartwright was walking through the valley of the shadow of death in more ways than one.

It was in his hands and the hands of his family to show him the light.


	5. Chapter 4

FOUR

"So just _who_ have you got hidden away at your house, Laura Ingalls? I hear its a gunslinger."

Laura closed her eyes and sighed. Her peaceful swinging time outside of the school was over.

Nellie.

"Well?" the blonde girl demanded in that way she had, making it sound like you'd done something wrong just by living.

Drawing that sigh back into herself, Laura slid off the swing seat and turned to look at her nemesis. She liked that word. Pa'd taught it to her when they were reading Moby Dick. The white whale was Ahab's _nemesis_.

Laura's lips quirked with a smile.

Nellie kind of looked like a white whale.

"He ain't no gunslinger," she replied. "He's just a man who got hurt."

"Saving _you_ , I hear. It's a wonder you didn't get him killed being so stupid about that little bear cub."

Laura scowled. Now how did Nellie know about that? She hadn't told much of anyone. Then she remembered. Pa went to Mister Oleson for medicine. He probably told the storekeeper everything.

And Nellie probably sneaked and listened at the top of the stairs.

"I wasn't gonna leave it there all tangled up in the brambles. It might have died!" she snapped back.

"So that man is gonna die instead? I saw your Pa coming to get ice at the icehouse. He must be real bad." Nellie shook her head, making her perfect blonde ringlets swing. "But I suppose if you think a bear cub is more important than a man..."

"I didn't know he was gonna come rushin' out of the woods! I didn't even know he was there!" she all but shouted, her own guilty feelings making her temper rise. "I would of done anythin' I could for Joe not to get hurt."

Nellie smirked. "So the gunslinger's name is Joe?"

Laura let out a deep sigh. Why she let Nellie get under her skin, she didn't know. Still it was hard not to since just her existing was irritating.

"I told you he'd _not_ a gunslinger. His name's Joe and Pa says he's a rancher from out West."

"Ooh. A rancher?" Nellie made a face. "Does he stink like cattle? Ma says they all stink like sweat and cattle." The blonde girl let out an exaggerated sigh. "Ma says never to marry a man that smells like a stable." She paused and then leveled her eyes like a bull before it charged. "I guess _your_ Ma never heard that."

Laura's fingers were clenched. That was never a good sign. "You take that back, Nellie Oleson!"

"Take what back?" She rolled her eyes skyward. "I didn't say anything. You're just overly _sensitive_ Laura Ingalls. You need to develop some backbone."

Laura breathed in and out a couple of times. Given half a chance, she'd snap Nellie's!

"Why I do declare, you've gone all red. You look like the top of your head's going to blow off." Nellie placed a finger along her chin and tilted her head. "I'd say that would be an improvement. Wouldn't you?

Laura lifted her fists. "I've had just about enough of you! Why don't you just _get_ before I _for_ get I'm supposed to be forgivin'?"

Nellie cackled. "Like there's anything to forgive _me_ for!" Growing sober, the tall blonde girl moved forward. Poking her finger against her pinafore, she drove Laura back. "You're the one who's going to be responsible if that gunslinger dies! It's all your fault for being so _stupid!"_

She wanted to punch her. But she couldn't.

Nellie was right.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Girls! Time to come in. Class is about to begin!" Miss Beadle called from the church steps. "Everyone else is inside."

Nellie stared her down for a minute more, and then with a flounce of her perfect curls and her New York City dress she crossed the school yard, moved past Miss Beadle, and went inside.

Her teacher waited a moment and then called her again. "Laura, you need to come."

The tears were still flowing. She was crying so hard, really, that she couldn't even answer. Taking a couple of breaths, she said, her voice shaky. "I don't feel so good, Miss Beadle. Can I go home?"

Her teacher crossed the yard and came to her side. When she saw the state she was in, the blonde woman knelt beside her.

"Oh, Laura," she said, wiping away some of the tears with her hanky, "what did Nellie say this time?"

Her chin was on her chest. She muttered a reply.

"What? Speak up, Laura."

After drawing a breath, she looked up. "Nothing but the truth," she said in a whisper.

Miss Beadle looked at her and then she took her by the hand. "Come with me to the steps," she said, and led the way. After they sat down, her teacher faced her. "Tell me what Nellie said."

It all poured out like milk running from an upturned crock. She told Miss Beadle about how stupid she'd been to try to save the bear cub and how she'd talked her sister into it even though Mary was against it. How she remembered what their pa had told them about mama bears, but thought that – this time – the cub's mama _couldn't_ be around because he was all wrapped up in brambles and she wasn't there trying to get him out. Laura's voice grew quiet as she related what she had seen – first the mama bear, so angry and running toward her – and then the man stepping into the path of the bear. She described how that old mama bear took him down and then swung him from side to side with her teeth in his leg and all the time there was blood flying everywhere. She told her teacher about how the man was sick and how his fever was real high.

She told her how he was going to die and it was all because of her!

There were tears in Miss Beadle's eyes too. "Oh, Laura..." she said.

Laura looked up at her. "Can I go home, Miss Beadle? I just need to know that Joe's still livin'. I can't think about my schoolwork. All I can think about is _him!"_

Miss Beadle took her hand. "Laura, I can't let you go home early. Not without your parents permission. However..." Her teacher wiped a few more tears away. "I can take you and Mary by your house after school and we can see together how he is doing. Would that help?"

Laura nodded. "Yes, Ma'am, but..."

"But?"

She shook her head. "I can't keep my mind on my schoolwork, Ma'am, like I said. I don't know how I'll get anything done."

Miss Beadle stroked her hair. "That's all right. You just do the best you can do. And don't you let that old Nellie Oleson bother you." The blonde woman scowled. "It would take just about all of eternity for that girl to apologize for all the things _she's_ done wrong." Her teacher's hand flew to her lips. "Oh!" she laughed. "I shouldn't have said that!"

Laura frowned – just for show. "You're always s'posed to tell the truth, Miss Beadle. Isn't that right?"

Her teacher rose and held out her hand. "You're right, Laura." She hesitated a moment and then said, "And Harriet Oleson is a busybody!"

This time she laughed.

Then she followed Miss Beadle into the school.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Lars Hanson pulled his team to a halt. It was early afternoon and he had closed the mill early to come out to the Ingalls' place to find Charles. He could have waited until later but, with what he knew of the condition of the young man who had saved Laura's life, he felt it was important to bring the new information he had to his friend's attention as soon as possible. He had, in his vest pocket, two telegrams a rider had brought him that morning. One was to him from Benjamin Cartwright and the other from the sheriff in Sleepy Eye, both inquiring as to whether or not anyone had seen a young man with curly silver-grey hair and green eyes. Joseph Francis Cartwright, it seemed, was a highly sought after man. And while he understood Charles reasons for not wiring Joe's father and respected them, he also feared that – in some way – Charles might be held responsible should it be found out he was harboring him and had done nothing to confirm that he was alive.

Lars looked at the Ingalls' household.

At least he _hoped_ Joe was alive.

He hadn't thought about his journey west for a long time. He'd been a young man then in his twenties. His wagon had not been a part of the train young Benjamin Cartwright traveled in but, for a time, they had joined forces for the safety of those heading west. Benjamin had just lost his second wife and was journeying with his young son, Adam, and the boy's baby brother. They had talked about their dreams – Benjamin's of buying land in Nevada and building an empire and his, of starting a town. In time they parted ways when he went north and Benjamin and his small family continued west. They had corresponded a few times over the years, but it had been a decade or more since they had exchanged letters. It moved him that Benjamin remembered him well enough to ask his youngest boy to contact him on his way east. It grieved his heart that the young man had been so badly injured.

He did not want his first letter to Benjamin in all that time to carry the news of the death of his son.

As he sat there, thinking, the door opened and Hiram Baker stepped out. The doctor looked drained. His golden hair was unkempt and he had the beginnings of a beard. When Hiram saw him he stopped. His lips curled in a weary smile.

"What brings you out here, Lars?" he asked.

Lars climbed down from his rig. His eyes went to the house. "How is the boy?"

The doctor ran a hand along the back of his neck. "Finally sleeping naturally, I am happy to report."

"So is he out of danger?"

Hiram shrugged. "If the fever remains down and no new infection occurs, I would say he's on the road to recovery. The fever broke last night. Still..."

" _Ja?"_

"It's going to be a long road. He won't be going anywhere very fast – or even getting out of that bed for some time."

"Can he speak?" he asked.

Hiram frowned. "Not yet. At least, not coherently. Why?"

The older man shook his head. " _Vhere_ is Charles?"

The doctor indicated the building behind him. "In the barn."

Lars looked. "I _vill_ be speaking to him then. Good day, Hiram."

"Is something wrong?"

He halted and turned back. "No," he lied. "It's _joost_ some mill business."

The doctor held his gaze for a minute and then nodded. "All right. Tell Charles to come in the house when you're done speaking with him. I want to go over some of the care instructions for Joe." He looked toward town. "Now that he's better, I need to see to some of my other patients."

"I _vill_ tell him."

As Doctor Baker nodded his thanks, the older man headed for the barn.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles looked up when he heard a noise to find Lars Hanson standing, framed in the barn's open doorway. Anchoring the rake he'd been using to clean out the horse stall against the stall wall, he headed for his employer and friend.

"What brings you out here, Lars?" he asked as he wiped his hand on his pants and offered it to the other man.

The older man shook it and then reached into his pocket. He held out two telegrams. "These."

Charles took them. One was addressed to Lars. The other to 'whomever it may concern'.

"Go ahead. Read them both. You _haf_ my permission and, Charles, you _are_ the one concerned."

Opening the first envelope he pulled out the piece of paper that contained the message: SON MISSING. STOP. JOE CARTWRIGHT. ANY WORD. STOP. CONTACT BEN CARTWRIGHT. STOP. VIRGINIA CITY NEVADA. STOP.

His eyes flicked to Lars as he switched the envelopes and read the second message.

FROM SHERIFF SLEEPY EYE. STOP. MAN MISSING. STOP. JOE CARTWRIGHT. STOP. FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. STOP. IF SIGHTED INFORM LAW. STOP.

Charles' brown eyebrows danced toward the tumble of curls on his forehead. He let out a low whistle.

"It could mean trouble, Charles. If someone realizes who the young man is you _haf_ in your house. I did not _vant_ to trouble you, but..."

"It's no trouble, Lars," he said, slipping the second note into the envelope. "I saw you talking to Doc Baker. Did he tell you how Joe was doing?"

" _Ja._ He said he is better."

"I'm hoping to be able to talk to him tonight." Charles' eyes went to the house. "He's a grown man, Lars. It has to be up to him."

The mill owner nodded slowly. "And yet, if I _vere_ his father, I _vould_ hope someone _vould_ tell me where my boy _vas_ ," he said quietly.

Charles had thought long and hard about it. If one of his children was missing – no matter how old – and he was looking for them and found out someone knew where they were and had not told him, he would be furious. And yet, as he said, Joe was a grown man and, reasonable or not, he had the distinct feeling Joe Cartwright did _not_ want to be found.

He reached out and placed a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Let's give it one more day. Hopefully, Joe will be up to talking tonight and he can make the decision himself. All right?" Lifting his hand, he asked, "Can I keep these and show them to Joe?"

" _Ja._ You keep them. And you let me know _vhat_ he says as soon as possible."

He nodded. "I will."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Caroline checked the chicken she had cooking in the stove and decided she had a few minutes to step in and check on their guest. Before Doctor Baker had gone to lay down to rest, she had helped him remove the soaked blankets and ice, and together they had dressed the young man in one of Charles' nightshirts. Joe was still fevered, but it was nothing compared to the temperature he'd had before. He felt slightly warm to the touch now like a youngster did when fighting a mild infection. The high fever had broken about midday and Joe had fallen into a deep sleep. She'd checked on him periodically and he'd been sleeping every time.

Poor thing! He needed it.

After wiping her hands on her apron, Caroline hung it over the back one of a chair. After stopping at the mirror to pin a few stray strands of blonde hair out of her eyes, she headed down the passage to their bedroom. The late afternoon sun was shining in through the window, casting a warm glow over the room and its occupant. Moving quietly she checked to make sure the pitcher by the bed had cool water in it and that there were adequate cloths should they have need of them again. Then she crossed to the window and began to draw the curtains together.

"Leave them. Please," a quiet voice said.

Caroline spun. The man in her bed was alert and watching her. She smiled. "You're awake! How wonderful."

He blinked several times and then looked about the room. It was obvious he was puzzled. "Where am I?"

She came to the bed and sat down beside him. "You're in my home. Mine, and my husband's."

He licked his lips and swallowed. "Can I have some water?"

"Of course!" She jumped up and went to the pitcher on the opposite side of the bed. After filling the cup, she again sat beside him and held it to his lips.

"Better?"

He nodded as she drew it away. "How... How did I get here?" Joe asked, his voice rough from disuse.

"You were hurt," Caroline said as she put the cup down. "Charles brought you here."

"What happened?"

The blonde woman laid her hand on his. "You saved our daughter's life and nearly lost your own."

His gun-metal grey brows knit together in the center and he frowned. "The little brown-haired girl..."

"That was Laura. She was very foolish. She tried to help – "

Joe nodded. "Bear cub. I remember."

"We're so sorry you were hurt."

His lips curled. "I'm not."

His words surprised her. "You're not?"

"Wouldn't have met...you nice people otherwise."

Tears entered her eyes. "That's very gracious of you."

"Caroline."

She looked up to find her husband standing in the bedroom doorway. He had one hand on the jamb and the other in his pocket and was staring at the injured man, a resolute look on his handsome face.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I need to talk to our guest before he gets too tired." Charles moved into the room and stood at the end of the bed so the injured man could see him. "If that's all right with you," he said, addressing Joe.

She saw Joe's eyes widen and then narrow. Though the sick man had seen her husband before, he probably didn't remember.

She had to admit, the resemblance was startling.

Slowly, Joe nodded.

"I'll go finish supper."

Charles caught her arm. "I told Lars to find someone to bring the girls back home."

Caroline beamed. She missed her little ones!

He leaned over and kissed her lips. Then he nodded toward the hall.

Understanding, the blonde woman hurried from the room.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles pulled up a chair and sat by the bed. He looked at the man laying there, staring out the window. Joseph Francis Cartwright – if that's who he truly was – looked to be about thirty. He had a boyish face that seemed out of place surrounded as it was by an unruly halo of curly silver-grey hair. Joe was thin, but he thought that might have come recently because his body was that of a man who wasn't afraid to work. He'd seen it all when they undressed him. Charles frowned. He'd seen as well the record of the multiple injuries the man had suffered. They were written in scars and tough knots of tissue on his shoulders and back.

In fact, he looked like he might just _be_ that gunfighter Mary was worried about.

Still, there was a gentleness about the man that belied that thought. He looked refined for a rancher, as if he was a child of wealth. The clothing they had removed from his battered form had reflected that as well. It was cut from an expensive cloth and tailored, not homespun. He'd heard him speaking to Caroline and his words were cultured. He'd obviously had an education of some sort, though it was too early to tell whether it went beyond the standard years.

Charles stared at him for a moment longer and then asked, " _Are_ you Joseph Francis Cartwright?"

His eyes had been nearly closed. They opened and Joe turned his head in his direction. "Who wants to know?" he asked, a note of defiance creeping into his tone.

"Just about everyone this side of Nevada," Charles answered. He removed the envelopes from his pocket and held them out. "Including Benjamin Cartwright."

The injured man's jaw was tight. "Would you believe me if I told you 'no'?"

"I'd say lyin' is a poor way to thank the man who saved your life," he answered quietly. When Joe said nothing more, he asked, "Son, what are you runnin' from?"

Joe snorted. "Nothing. _Everything_..."

Charles dropped the telegrams on the bedside table. He sat back and folded his arms. Running one hand across his face, he asked, "So what do we do now?"

Joe's green eyes narrowed and then widened with surprise. "You haven't answered them?"

He shook his head. "No."

The sick man shifted a bit, so he could look at him better. "Why?"

He held his gaze. "You're old enough to make your own choices. Do you _want_ me to wire your father?"

Joe's eyes moistened. He almost choked. "No."

"Are you running from him?"

Again. "No."

Charles sighed. "So you want to tell me what you _are_ running from, Joseph Francis Cartwright?"

A little smile lifted the corner of the other man's upper lip. "No."

He couldn't help it. He laughed. "Anybody ever tell you, you're ornery?"

It was instant. The pain in Joe's eyes. He looked away. "I'm tired," he whispered. "I'd like to sleep."

Charles stared at him a minute longer and then he rose to his feet. "All right. I'm sure the Doc would agree with you." He started for the door and then stopped and turned back. "A couple of things before I go. Doc Baker says that its gonna take you some time to recover. You're welcome here until you do, so long as you don't bring any harm to my family."

Joe shifted to look at him. "You said 'a couple'."

"I'm getting to it. Secondly, if you don't want anyone to know who you are or that you're here, that's your business. You're old enough to make your own choices. But I will tell you this, I'm a father and I know I would be heartbroken if my son..." He paused, hearing the pain in his own voice. Joe didn't miss it either. "I would be heartbroken if my son thought it was better for me to think he was dead when he was livin'. You know, Joe..."

"What?"

"It makes me think maybe you don't _want_ to go on livin'." His voice took on an edge. "One time. One time and you try somethin', and I'll send you packin' injured or not. I won't be havin' my girls see anything of that nature. You understand me?"

The young man was staring at him, a curious look on his face. Finally, he nodded. "I understand."

"Good. Now, I'll go see about Caroline bringin' you some broth from that chicken she's got cookin'. You need to build up your strength."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe Cartwright watched the brown-haired man go and then returned his eyes to the room he lay in. It was simple and homey. The curtains on the window were hand-sewn as was the quilt that covered him. The furniture in the room was finely made but didn't appear to be store-bought. What he saw took him back many, many years to the log house and land he'd begged his father for when, at the age of twenty-one, he and Laura White were to be married. Joe closed his eyes as that ancient pain blended with the current one.

It seemed every woman he truly loved was destined to die.

He'd thought about it with Alice, even asked her once if she was sure she wanted to take a chance on a Cartwright. Their record for incomplete courtships and almost marriages was legendary. This time it happened. This time he had said his vows and he and the wonderful woman he had chosen had built a house and a life together.

And then, she died. Burned alive.

He closed his eyes in an attempt to drive the waking vision from his eyes, but it was no use. When his eyes were closed the waking vision became a nightmare from which he could not escape.

Well, not without downing the contents of a whiskey bottle.

Joe sucked in air. Pressing down with his hands, he shifted his body up. The movement was more painful than he could have imagined and it made him shudder. He took one hand and drew the blanket that covered him down, and using his right hand, examined his battered body. His left shoulder was stiff and that arm was bandaged and hurt like the devil. Still, it was nothing in comparison to what his leg felt like. Laying there, panting, he used his fingers to probe the area of the thigh wound. Several times their tips found small indentations – puckers in the skin left no doubt by the angry mama bear's teeth. The area of the wound was still hot to the touch, though it seemed the heat was growing less and not more.

Daunted by what he found, Joe laid his head back on the feather pillow. His memories of the bear attack were muddled. He could see the she-bear standing on her haunches at the edge of the trees, bellowing at him. He remembered her charging and barreling into him, striking his body like a runaway locomotive and driving him to the ground.

Then, pain. Nothing but pain.

The next thing he knew, he was here. He'd awakened before, but he'd been out of his head. One time he thought he saw Alice. Another time he thought he heard his pa talking. Joe turned and looked the way the brown-haired man had gone. And him, this man who had saved his life, he'd thought he was nothing more than a fever-dream – a wish from his subconscious for a life that could never be. Him older, as a pa, with his beautiful wife beside him and his children playing in the yard.

An ironic smile curled Joe's lips. Maybe this current reality was the dream – this life he'd led with all of its loss and grief. Maybe he'd close his eyes and open them again to find that Joseph Francis Cartwright was nothing but a figment of his imagination and he could shake him off as he would a bad dream.

Laying there, remembering, Joe felt himself slip toward sleep. A minute, maybe two later, he heard the door of the house open and two girlish voices giggle and cry out 'Pa! Pa!'

Joe looked at the telegrams. The brown-haired man had left them on the table. He moved gingerly, stretching his good arm out, and managed to pick up the one on top. It was from his father.

Joe closed his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

Dear God.

Pa.


	6. Chapter 5

FIVE

Nels Oleson was a busy man. Always busy. Between the mercantile business, his nagging wife, and his two... _darling..._ children, it seemed that someone was always demanding something from him. Now, here it was, the beginning of a new day and he'd already had to lace Harriet's corset, tie ribbons in Nellie's hair before she headed to school, shoo Willie out of the candy and upstairs to get his books, and open the door early to two strangers who were banging on it and making a racket. In the end it turned out that they didn't want him after all, but were looking for the post office to see if letter or wire had arrived from their employer. Of course, Grace wasn't in yet, and so now they were wandering around the store looking at things they had no intention of buying, and since he didn't know them from Adam, he had to _watch_ them wander around to make certain neither one stole anything. And on top of that one was young – maybe twenty – and it seemed he had caught Nellie's eye because, instead of heading out to school, she was lingering on the porch with her nose pressed up against the glass.

Nels sighed.

And it wasn't even eight o'clock yet.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you fellows?" he asked for the third time.

The older of the two – a man with golden hair about thirty years old – turned to look at him. He favored him with a smile. "No, sir. We're just waitin' on that office to open."

"What brings you to our little town? We're a bit off the beaten track," he said as he polished the glass on the front of the counter, wiping away Willie's fingerprints.

There was a pause. Nels caught the two men looking at each other out of the corner of his eye. Then the older one answered, "A business associate of our employer failed to show up for an important meeting. He wired the train station where the man disembarked. He bought a horse at the livery and then disappeared. Our employer is worried about him."

"Oh?" Nels said standing up. "Why would he be in Walnut Grove?"

"Mister Poavey is a lumber man. He's got us checking all the mill towns between here and Medary," the younger man said as he lifted the lid to a candy jar and helped himself to a peppermint.

"That'll be five cents," Nels said.

The young man smiled. "I'll catch you before we leave. I'm mighty fond of peppermint."

The thin storekeeper moved behind the counter. "So what does this man look like? The one you're hunting?"

"Oh, he'd be about my age. Around thirty. Curly brown hair and a big smile. Green eyes." He held his hand at his forehead. "Kind of small. You know, three or four inches short of six foot? He's mighty sassy and sure of himself like them little men are. Big mouth too."

It was apparent this man did _not_ like whoever they were looking for. "Nothing more specific?" he asked, thinking that description for the most part fit Charles Ingalls.

"Oh, I'll know him when I see him," the older of the two grinned. "Used to be buddies."

"But not anymore?"

A light entered the man's eyes. It was enough to tell him that – if he had seen this man – there would be no way he would have told these two about it. "No. Just business associates. We got a contract, Clayton here and me, with that man."

"Oh!" a familiar female voice exclaimed. "And who are these two fine gentlemen?"

Nels stifled a sigh as Harriet bustled in and practically pushed him out of the way in her eagerness to impress.

"This is my wife, Harriet." He looked the men over. The one with golden hair was thin-faced. His speech was drawling, with just the hint of a southern accent. The other one was baby-faced, with black hair cropped close on the sides and long on the top, and a pair of piercing and slightly unnerving ice blue eyes. Both were dressed well. They looked more like ranchers or cattlemen.

Or outlaws.

"I'm afraid I neglected to get your names..."

The younger one spoke with the peppermint stick hanging out of his mouth. "Clayton. Clayton Crew," he said.

Nels nodded. "And you would be?"

The blond stared at him. His eyes too were light, but they were like a summer's morn that hid a storm to come.

"Donavan," he said as he extended a hand. "Dave Donavan. Pleased to meet you."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Laura looked up at her Pa and grinned. Then she looked at Mary who was holding Pa's other hand. He'd surprised them that morning by telling them that he was going to walk them into town. He explained that he had another day or two before the new project at Mister Hanson's mill would begin. He needed to go into town, but had no need to hurry to get there or back home, so he thought he'd just take a walk with the two most beautiful women in town, their Ma excepted, of course. Since Pa was gonna work around the house today, partly to help Ma with watching Joe, he had on his fine blue and green check shirt and a pair of his linsey-woolsey trousers and looked just about as handsome as handsome could be!

Laura sighed so deep looking at him she felt it right down to her toes.

"Somethin' wrong, Half-pint?" her pa asked, looking down at her.

"No, sir." She squeezed his hand and glanced at Mary, who nodded. "I'd say just about _everything_ that could be was right with the world."

He smiled that little smile that dimpled his cheeks. His dark eyebrows danced. "Just 'cause I'm walkin' you two to school?"

Her cheeks flushed. "Well, you know, Pa, you're mighty busy most of the time. I... We like to spend time with you and since we ain't...well, _boys_ , we don't get to do right often."

"So, let's see... You'd like to spend more time diggin' wells and muckin' out stalls and workin' in the hot sun cuttin' down crops." The dimples deepened. "Is that what you're tryin' to tell me? 'Cause if it is I can talk to your Ma – "

Both girls giggled. "I wouldn't mind goin' huntin'," she said wistfully.

Her pa nodded. "Maybe next year."

Laura drew a breath. He'd said 'yes!'.

"If your ma says it's okay."

Her balloon popped, Laura sobered. Ma would _never_ let her go hunting.

They'd arrived at the school, so Pa stopped walking. "Well, here you are!" he declared.

"Where you going next, Pa?" Mary asked as he planted a kiss on her sister's head.

"To the mill and then to Doctor Baker's. Hiram's got some more medicine for Joe."

Mary was quiet a moment. Laura saw her eyes flick to her and then away. "Is he all right now, Pa? Joe, I mean? He's going to make it, isn't he?"

Her father placed a hand on her shoulder as he answered. "God willing. He'd through the worst of it. The fever's down. Still, he's got a lot of healin' to do." Pa hesitated and then looked down at her. "You all right, Half-pint?"

She didn't look at him. "Yes, sir."

"Mary, why don't you go on inside and see if Miss Beadle needs any help since you got some time before the bell rings?"

"I'd like that!" Mary replied. Her sister looked at her then, concern in those big blue eyes. "See you soon, Laura."

Pa took her hand and led her over to a bench outside the school and sat her down. He stared at her a minute and then said, "You still blamin' yourself for what happened to Joe?"

She felt all choked up, so she just nodded.

He took her hand and covered it with his. "We all make mistakes, Half-pint. Some are small and some are mighty big. You know what your mistake was?"

"Yes, sir. Tryin' to save that bear cub."

"No," he replied. "That ain't it."

She frowned. "Then what _was_ it, Pa?"

He glanced at the church. "You remember your Bible stories? The one about Adam and Eve?"

Laura nodded. "I sure do."

"What did your teacher say about what their sin was? Was it eatin' the apple?"

She thought a moment. Finally she shook her head, "No, sir. The teacher said it was wantin' to be in charge like God." She looked at him. "But I don't want to be in charge like God, sir. I couldn't!"

He smiled. "God told Adam and Eve that in the garden there was only _one_ thing they couldn't have. He told them if they touched it or ate from the tree, that bad things would happen. That they'd have to leave that garden. Didn't he?"

She nodded.

"But they didn't listen 'cause they thought they knew better." Pa let go of her hand. "Well, you see, Half-pint, that's what you did when you went after that bear cub. You thought you knew better than me. And just like Adam and Eve, somethin' bad happened. Joe got hurt."

Tears formed in her eyes. "Oh, Pa..."

"But Joe's better. God was gracious _this_ time." He caught her around the shoulder with his arm and squeezed. "So I'm askin', did you learn anything?"

She nodded. "I _sure_ did, Pa. I ain't never gonna listen to those old voices in my own head when they tell me to do somethin' I know is wrong anymore."

The smile was back. He squeezed her again. Then he kissed the top of her head.

"I'll be remindin' you of that promise now and again," Pa laughed. Then he pulled her to her feet. "Now you get along to school. There's Willie to ring the bell."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nellie Oleson looked up as the school bell rang. She should be on her way, but the two men who had come into her father's store were just too fascinating. Especially that one with the black hair. She'd make up some excuse when she got to school and tell Miss Beadle that her ma had kept her behind to help with the store in order to explain being tardy.

Miss Beadle was what her mother called 'gullible'. She'd believe her.

The two men were in the post office talking to Mrs. Edwards. They were leaning on the counter and the older one – with the blond hair – was flirting with her. She could tell because Mrs. Edwards cheeks were burning. It was absolutely scandalous an old lady like her flirting with a handsome young stranger. Why, she was old enough to be his ma!

Well, practically.

Standing next to the post office window, Nellie tossed her perfect blonde ringlets back over her shoulders and arranged her skirts. She wanted to look her best when she talked to that handsome young man. Her mother had told her the best way to get a man's attention was to use her 'feminine wiles'. Well, she had those in spades, as her father often said. A little smirk quirked the ends of Nellie's lips. She could wrap any man around her little finger that she wanted to, just like she wrapped her ringlets around the curling iron in the morning when she was getting ready for school.

Nellie cast a look at Laura Ingalls where she was standing with her father. If Laura could have a mysterious man in her life, well, then, so could she!

She glanced in the window again at the man with the black hair.

He wore his gun tied down too.

Nellie watched as the two men tipped their hats and turned to leave the post office. She counted off the paces and then pushed off the wall and right into their path. As the door opened, she pretended that it had hit her and fell down on the porch, moaning about her leg.

"Sorry, miss!" the younger man said as he reached for her. "Are you okay?"

She turned her crocodile-tear-streaked face up toward him and batted her long black eyelashes. "I don't...know." She raised a hand and fanned. "I feel a little faint..."

"There's a chair over here," the older man remarked, sounding a bit harsh.

The younger one was looking into her eyes. Goodness, he was dreamy! His eyes were like those clear mountain streams the poets were always writing about.

"You go ahead, Dave. I'll make sure she's okay." He smiled as the other man moved toward the livery. "What's your name?"

She lowered her head and blushed pink on purpose. "Nellie. Nellie Oleson."

"Nellie. My name's Clayton. I'm sorry we had to meet this way."

Clayton. All of the _wonderful_ things of the world were written in that name. She closed her eyes and dreamed of him kissing her and then taking her away from this awful place with its hayseeds and rubes and appallingly unpleasant children like Laura Ingalls.

Sitting down, she fanned herself again. "Well, I'm glad we got to meet. What are you and your friend doing in town? It's obvious you're not from around here. You're far too cultured."

He snorted at that. "Our boss sent us out to find a man that's missing. He's a...business associate."

She was instantly on the alert for something she could potentially use to impress him. "You think he's here?"

Clayton shrugged. "Could be. He left the train at Medary. Bought a horse there and headed this way far as we can tell."

Her eyes returned to the schoolhouse. She considered what she was about to say – for maybe two heartbeats. It was something she had overheard and she was sure her father would not be happy if she told a stranger.

Still, he was such a _handsome_ stranger.

"Was his name Joe?" she asked demurely.

Clayton stiffened. He nodded. "Do you know where he is?"

At that moment, two things happened. Laura's Pa walked past headed toward the south end of town and she heard her mother bellow.

"Nellie Oleson! Why aren't you in school? Heavens, what am I going to do with you, child?" Her mother hustled up, brushing past Mister Ingalls. He paused, tipped his hat, smiled that infuriating smile he had, and then walked on. When her mother came up to the porch, she noted the dust on her dress and the dirt on her stockings. "Oh, Nellie!" she fussed, taking hold of her face and looking into her eyes. "My darling! Are you all right?"

Nellie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It didn't go well with feminine wiles. "Mother," she said sternly, "I am quite all right."

"Glad to hear that," Clayton said. "I'd best be going."

Drat!

"Now, come on, Nellie. No school for you today."

She scowled. "Just a second, mother. I need to thank Clayton for helping me." Breaking free she followed the young man who paused and turned back to look at her.

"You know that man you're looking for?" she asked. When he nodded, she indicated Laura's pa who was just disappearing around the bend. "He's at Charles Ingalls' house."

"Nellie!"

Letting out a sigh, she flung off the words as she headed for her mother, indicating the farmer.

"That's him!"

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Caroline Ingalls paused and listened to the silence. It was early morning. Carrie was still sleeping as was their guest. Charles had walked the girls to school and was coming back to do some long-needed chores around the house, but for the moment there was no one around and nothing to be heard but the sweet song of waking birds and the sound of a rising wind rushing through the trees.

Such moments were rare in the busy Ingalls' household. There was always someone moving, talking, running, or laughing through their modest house. There was _always_ work to be done. Constant setting out. Constant cleaning up. There was always a need to be 'doing' when it came to preserving enough food, to keeping the larder full, to providing for their family. She didn't resent or regret any of it.

But it was nice to stop now and then.

Removing the kerchief from her head, the blonde woman placed it in her apron pocket and then walked to the door and opened it. There was a storm brewing. She could feel it in the wind and scent it on the air. It was a good thing Charles intended to work inside today since it appeared by the time he got back, the rain would be falling. Hopefully one of the other residents of the town that lived their way would give the girls a ride home. It wasn't that they couldn't walk, but with the bite in the air she didn't want them getting wet and chilled. Thinking of that – of the possibility of fever – turned her mind to the injured man sleeping in their room. She hadn't checked on him for a while. It would probably be wise if she did. The first few days of recovery from so severe an injury were very important since an infection could recur without warning.

Closing the door, Caroline turned and walked through the kitchen and along the passage to their room. What she saw when she got there took her voice for a moment. The bed was empty and the man who had saved Laura was standing by the window!

"What are you doing out of bed?" she asked in the same tone she would have used with her children. "What in the world were you thinking!"

The man turned and gave her a wan smile. "I guess I wasn't."

Joe looked terrible. His color was off and there were great dark circles under his eyes. He had pulled the coverlet off of the bed and had it wrapped around his thin frame. He was shaking.

She moved to his side. "Come back to bed. You're in no shape to be on your feet." As she guided him over and made him sit, she added with a shake of her head. "Didn't your mother teach you anything?"

An odd look came over his face. "No, ma'am," he said, like he _was_ one of her children. "I don't remember my ma."

Caroline gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry. She died then?"

He nodded. "When I was five. I was raised by my pa and my older brothers." Joe paused and an ornery light entered his eyes. "And you know men ain't the smartest things."

The blonde woman laughed. She shook her head. "You are _so_ like Charles."

He seemed to be thinking. "That the man with the curly brown hair?"

"Yes. He's my husband."

Joe winced. She wasn't sure it was with physical pain. Then he said softly, "He's a mighty lucky man."

Caroline beamed. "Thank you. Though I am not sure Charles would always agree." Taking the coverlet from his shoulders, she helped him to lie back and then covered him with it. Then she sat down beside the bed. Looking at him, she said, "You strike me as a man of action, Joe. Am I going to have to tie you down to keep you in that bed?"

He pursed his lips. After a moment he said, "I feel useless."

There was a lot packed into that statement.

"You've been so kind to me, you and your family," he went on. "Given a lot while I just sit here taking."

"You were hurt, and hurt helping our child."

He shrugged. "Maybe. But I'm breathin'. There's gotta be something I can do to repay you."

A man of honor, she thought. She wondered briefly what that pa and those brothers who had reared him were like. "Well, Joe, Doctor Baker wants you to stay off that leg for about a week."

"Don't tell me," he sighed. "He's a scowling old man in a black suit with a sour expression. Did he tell you I was 'young and strong' and that it was up to me and God whether I made it?"

Caroline chuckled. "Well, you got the part right about the suit. And he _did_ mention God. But, actually, Hiram isn't all that much older than Charles and he has _blond_ hair."

"Oh," he said, with that ornery turn of phrase. "I thought they all came out of a mold."

She shook her head. "Not to be too personal, Joe, but I did notice quite a few scars on your shoulders and back while I was cleaning you up."

He actually blushed.

"Oh, don't worry!" she laughed. "Charles was there too. Or the doctor." With a twist of her lips she said, "My daughter Mary thinks you're a gunslinger."

That made those green eyes widen. "What?"

"When Charles brought you in, you had your gun tied down to your left leg. I take it you're left-handed?"

He nodded.

"So is Charles. My goodness, the more I learn about you, the more it seems you two must be long lost brothers."

Out of nowhere he said, "My brothers are dead."

"Oh, Joe! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

He shook his head. "It's all right. Sometimes, well... It's like they never lived if I don't talk about them. Pa..." He swallowed. "It's hard for Pa. 'Specially with Hoss."

"That was your brother?"

"The middle one," he nodded. "Older brother Adam went to sea. He stopped writing home years ago. Hoss...died a few years back."

She hesitated and then asked, "Is your name Cartwright?"

Those eyes looked at her and then toward the window. "Yes, ma'am."

"Caroline, please."

"Caroline."

She drew in a breath. "Charles said you don't want anyone to know you are here."

He nodded. "That's right."

"May I ask why?"

Joe pressed his lips tight together before answering. "You can ask. Don't mean I'm saying."

She felt _so_ for him. He was in such pain, and it had nothing to do with the bear attack. Caroline thought a moment and then asked softly, "Was it your wife who died in the fire?"

Every muscle in his body tensed.

"You did a lot of talking when the fever was at its highest."

He let out a breath and it was as if his spirit went with it. "Alice," he said. "She was pregnant."

Caroline's heart wrenched in her. "Oh, dear Lord. Charles was right..."

Anger flashed in his eyes. "My pa always taught us that God was in control. That nothing happened without His consent. If God could let Alice die...my _child_ die like that..." His voice fell away to nothing as tear streaked his cheeks. "That's not a God I want anything to do with."

She reached out to him. "Joe..."

He'd turned his face into the pillow. "I'm tired. I'd like to sleep."

Caroline hesitated only a second and then rose. "All right. I'll be in the kitchen." She moved to the end of the passage and looked back. The poor man – wounded in so many ways – looked so small and so in need, lying there in their bed. "Joe?"

He didn't look. "What?"

"I'll be making beans for supper. I could use some help snapping them if you think your arm is up to it."

He turned slightly toward her and nodded. "I can do that."

"You sleep for a while. I'll have one of the girls bring them in when they get done with their after school chores."

She stood a while, listening to his breathing, and when she was sure Joe was sleeping she returned to the kitchen, sat at the table, and cried.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"That him?" Dave Donavan asked, watching the brown-haired man that was stepping out of the doctor's office.

Clayton nodded. "That's the one the girl pointed out. She was talking about someone named 'Joe' and she said, "That's him."

The blond man's eyes narrowed. "It's been more than ten years. I need to get closer."

"What if he recognizes you?"

Dave rolled his eyes. "I ain't gonna go up to him. You do somethin'. Make him turn this way." He nodded toward a thicket of trees. "I'll hide in there where I can watch."

The younger man nodded. "You want me to talk to him?"

"Nah. I don't want to make him aware of us. Just bump into him or somethin', ask for directions or somethin' and get back over here."

Clayton nodded. "Okay."

As Dave Donavan watched the younger man cross the street, his mind returned to that time, all those years ago, when Joe Cartwright had ruined him. He and Joe had been friends. Joe'd put him in charge of his logging operation, working on that big fat contract with the Sun Mountain Mining Co. Joe'd ended up being a self-righteous holier-than-thou type like his high-and-mighty father. _Worse_ , even. When he and his boys took a break now and then, just to whet their whistle and blow off steam, Joe'd fired them all and sent them packing. Well, he'd been mighty angry about that and when a rival contractor named Will Poavey had asked him if he wanted a chance to pay Joe Cartwright back, why, he'd jumped at it. He'd taken dynamite and blown up that fancy log flume Joe was building and then, well, when that didn't stop the work, he'd tried to kill the uppity Boot-licker. _Would_ have too if his family hadn't interfered.

Well, Cartwright's family was dead now, except for his old man, and Ben Cartwright was near two thousand miles away.

Dave glanced at Clayton. He was standing outside the doctor's office waiting for the brown-haired man to exit. He spit and then spread the spittle in the dirt with the toe of his boot. Will Poavey had come through for him after the Cartwrights turned him over to Roy Coffee and had him sent to prison. He'd got him paroled after about five years and he'd followed Poavey to Minnesota where he'd become the foreman of his operations there. Things had been going good until word came that Ben Cartwright might be expanding his interests, courting the railroads and the lumber companies in the East, and that he'd sent his son Joseph to do the negotiating. Will Poavey was right angry. He wanted Cartwright stopped and said the best way to do it was to work Ben's last boy over and send him home as a warning. He agreed. He was gonna send Joe Cartwright back to his pappy.

In a pine box.

Being part of the association of men who trade in lumber, supplying the mines and railroads, Will had gotten notice of all the men attending the conference. When Cartwright didn't show, he'd sent them out to backtrack the route he was taking. No one knew why Joe got off that train, but it was to their advantage. If this was him in this backwater town, well then, it would be a lot easier to take him than in the middle of a meeting, in the heart of a big city.

He could already feel his hands around his throat.

A ruckus caused Dave to look up. Clayton was on the ground and the brown-haired man was helping him up. He heard them exchange a few words and then his partner asked a question. It was the right one. The man with the curly brown hair turned directly toward him, pointing something out. When Clayton nodded, he flashed a smile and then turned and walked off in the other direction.

He knew that face, that wild hair _and_ that smile. There was no doubt about it.

He'd found Joe Cartwright.


	7. Chapter 6

SIX

When Joe opened his eyes again, it was way past time to snap beans. The sun was down and outside of the window it was black as pitch. He could smell rain on the breeze, so that storm that was brewing earlier must have come and gone. Even though the late afternoon sunlight was coursing through the open window, casting a golden glow over everything in the room, someone had lit a lamp on the bedside table. There was a cup and pitcher there, as well as a plate of cookies. Wondering what was in the cup, he reached for it and grunted as he inadvertently moved his injured leg.

It hurt like the Devil!

"Here. Let me get that for you," a child's voice said.

It wasn't until that moment that Joe realized he wasn't alone. A small girl was sitting in a chair at the end of the bed, hidden in the shadows. She left the chair and walked to the table, picked the pitcher up and poured a golden liquid in to the cup. Then she held it out to him.

"Pa made apple cider. I thought you might like some," she said.

As he took the cup, he studied his small visitor. She looked like she was about nine years olds and had fairly light brown hair tending toward red. Her eyes were brown too and they were set in a freckled face. Her hair, which was parted in the middle, had been fashioned into two long braids. She wore a light green homespun dress with a white pinafore over it.

And looked vaguely familiar.

"Thank you," Joe said, taking it. One sip let him know how good it was. "Thank you," he said again. "That's great."

"Do you have apple cider where you come from?" she asked.

He nodded as he took another sip. "We don't make it, though. Usually we trade something for it or buy it in town from someone who has an orchard."

"What do you do? Are you a farmer like my pa?"

Joe shook his head. "I'm a rancher. I spend my days roping and tying steers, not cornstalks and wheat."

She laughed at that. "You're funny."

He had been, once upon a time.

When he said nothing more, the little girl shifted uneasily. Her eyes went to his leg lying under the covers. "How are you feelin'?"

He pursed his lips and smiled "Oh, I'll be right as rain soon enough. It hurts, but I've had worse injuries before."

Her eyes went to his shoulder. "Ma says you've been shot."

Joe nodded. "More than once."

"How come?"

He thought a moment. Then he laughed. "Sheer stupidity most of the time."

Her brown brows met in the middle. "So you've done...stupid things too?"

She wasn't looking at him now, but had her head down. The fingers of one hand were moving against the other like she was nervous. Joe concentrated. Then, he had it.

This was the little girl he had saved from the bear.

He put the cup down and then, with his good hand, reached up and pulled the nightshirt back from his left shoulder. "You see that scar right there?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "How'd you get that?"

He hadn't thought of that day for years. Maybe for more than a decade. The memory of it was bittersweet both for the men who peopled it and the love of family its outcome had shown.

"I was about twenty. There was this wolf roaming our land and killin' our cattle." He shook his head. "I _sure_ wanted that wolf. I was hunting it with my older brother. He wanted to go home, but I just wouldn't quit. I told him to stay at the camp while I went out one last time."

"Did you find it?" she asked, her voice hushed.

"I sure did. I tied my horse off, went to ground, and tracked it around a big outcropping of rocks. Only problem was, big brother Adam had decided to track it too after all and he was coming from the other side on his horse. I didn't look. He didn't look."

"What happened?" she breathed.

"Adam shot me. The wolf got me. I almost died."

"Gosh," she said, frowning. "You were _both_ kinda stupid."

Joe snorted. "I guess we were at that."

The little girl sobered. "So your brother almost killed you? And you forgave him?"

He shrugged. "We all make mistakes. Besides, Adam was family. I knew he didn't mean to do it." Joe paused. "Just like I know you didn't mean for me to get hurt either."

She was looking down again. "No, sir."

He reached out with his good hand to touch her arm. "Joe."

Her brown eyes flicked to his face. Her lips curled in a small smile. "Joe."

"And what's your name?" he asked.

"Laura."

"Laura," he said it slowly, the sound of it bringing with it all the memories that name conjured up. Then he let them go and concentrated on the living child in front of him. "I had a girl named Laura once. She had brown hair too. You're just as pretty as she was."

She seemed surprised. "Me? Pretty?"

He nodded. "I bet your ma and pa tell you that every day."

Her freckled nose scrunched up. "They sure do. But Mary's the pretty one. I'm just...well...ordinary."

Joe formed a serious face. "No girl who stands up to a five hundred pound mama grizzly bear that's coming straight at her is ordinary in my book."

"I didn't –"

"You forget, I saw you. You were standing there staring her down when I came out of the trees."

Laura frowned. "I was scared."

"So was I."

Her brown eyes widened. "You were?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he said.

"You didn't look scared. You stood right up to that old bear and didn't back down."

Joe laughed. "That doesn't mean I wasn't scared," he admitted. "Anyhow, we're both here and we're both alive and safe, so what's say we forget all about it?" He held his hand out for her to take. "Shake, and be friends?"

She was staring at his hand, thinking hard. "Well, I guess if your brother was okay with you forgiving him, then I can be okay with it too."

Laura took it.

"Its settled then," he grinned.

"Laura, are you wearing our guest out?"

Joe looked up to find the pretty blonde woman standing at the edge of the room. "No, ma'am," he said. "Laura here was keepin' me company. It's gets kind of lonely in here."

"I feel funny with you calling me 'ma'am'. Caroline will do." As he nodded, she added, "Doctor Baker will be out in the morning. We'll ask him if it's all right for you to get up and move around the house." She grinned at him. "I get the feeling you are a hard man to keep down."

"I don't much cotton to sitting – or laying in bed, that's for sure."

"Well, we'll see what we can do. Right now, young lady, it is time for you to finish your chores and get to bed. You have school tomorrow."

Laura gave him a longing look and then said, "Yes, Ma'am. See you later, Joe?"

He nodded. "Looking forward to it."

After Laura disappeared, her mother turned to him and said, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For what you just said to Laura. She's been very upset."

He shrugged. "Like I told her, we all make mistakes." Joe paused, remembering. "As many times as I've been forgiven in my life, I figure I should pass it on."

"Well, thank you anyway." Caroline started to turn away and then looked back. "Can I get you anything?"

Joe shook his head. "I'm fine, thanks."

"You get some sleep. Like I said, the doctor will be here first thing in the morning."

He watched her go and then listened as the Ingalls' household shut down. He heard their girls climb to their loft bedroom and heard the door open and shut behind Caroline's husband. He felt bad about being in their bed. The sooner he was up and on his feet, the sooner their lives could return to normal. Joe thought a moment and then turned his face to the wall.

Of course, he had no idea where he was going to go.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles turned around and closed the door behind him. It was well past midnight and he knew everyone inside the house would be asleep. He, on the other hand, was not. He'd lain on his makeshift bed in the barn, tossing and turning for nigh on an hour until he finally gave in and rose. Possessed of a restless spirit he'd walked the farm, checking in on the animals and making sure all of the gates were locked. Ending up in the yard he listened to the sounds of the night, trying to determine what it was had wakened him.

In the end he decided it was God and since everything was all right outside, he'd better go in.

With a yawn, the brown-haired man ran his hand along the back of his neck as he turned into the common room and then he stopped. Someone was sitting in front of what remained of the fire. It wasn't Caroline.

It was Joe.

"Sorry if I startled you," Joe said. "I just had to get out of that bed."

"You do that by yourself?" he asked.

He couldn't see the smile, but he could hear it in Joe's voice. "I waited until everyone was asleep. Figured your wife would try to stop me."

"Caroline's mothering doesn't stop with the girls," he snorted. Charles pulled a chair away from the table and took it over to the area of the hearth and sat down. "How are you feelin'?"

"All right, I guess."

"That's reassuring," he said. "That leg wound you've got is nothin' to take too lightly. Doc said the fever could return if it opens again."

The fire cracked and a log fell to embers. The light it cast caught the young man's face so he could see clearly that he was smiling.

"I've proved them wrong before," Joe said.

Charles was silent for a minute. Then he asked, "Joe, what are you doing here?"

He turned his face toward the fire. His head shook. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

The look he got was sharp. This was a man who was not used to being challenged. "Well then, you tell me what I know!" Joe snapped.

"All right. I will." Charles leaned back. "You're a man on the run."

"You're wrong. There's no one chasing me."

"I didn't say anyone was chasing you. If there's any chasin' being done, _you're_ the one doing it. You're runnin' from yourself."

"Oh." The man's green eyes reflected the fire, though they had fire enough in them of their own. "What makes you so sure?"

"Well, from what I understand you were headin' to La Crosse to the big meetin' they're havin' there. Lars told me your father owns about half the state of Nevada and he's lookin' for new ways to increase business."

"Lars?" Joe was frowning. "Lars Hanson?"

Charles nodded. "Your father's old friend. I work for him."

Joe's jaw tightened. "Small world."

"Ain't it?" He shifted in his chair and leaned forward, linking his hands between his knees. "Seems you never made it to that meetin'. Got off the train at Medary and disappeared." Charles shook his head. "What I'm wonderin' is where you were headed when you showed up in the woods to save Laura from that bear. Walnut Grove ain't exactly on the road to anywhere."

"I got lost."

Charles's brown brows peaked toward the tousle of curls on his forehead. That was the most honest thing the wounded man had said so far!

"So I guess the question is, Joe Cartwright, do you want to be found?"

Joe remained silent for nearly a minute. The fire cracked. The embers sizzled.

Without lookin at him, the injured man started talking.

"I've been through a lot in my life. I've got a temper and it's got me in trouble more times than sense would say I should have survived. My pa says I don't know the meaning of 'don't', let alone 'can't'. I've always been sure of myself, of what I could do... Of what I _wanted_. And, believe it or not, a lot of that knowin' came from what my pa taught me. Pa's one of the strongest men I know. He's got this rock solid base that can't be shaken." His voice fell to almost nothing. "I thought I had that too until..."

"Until your wife died."

Joe's green eyes flicked to his face. "Talkin' in my sleep, right?"

Charles nodded. He was silent a moment. It was almost too horrific to consider. "A baby too?"

Joe nodded this time.

He drew a breath and let it out in words that stabbed his heart. "I had a son that died. Last year. He was just a baby."

The other man turned to look at him. "I'm sorry."

"So am I." Charles sat up. "I'm not tellin' you to get your sympathy. Just to let you know that, in some way, I know how you feel."

Joe's gaze went to the room where Caroline slept.

"Do you?"

"I almost lost her too. Cut her leg on a wire in my wagon that I knew needed fixing. It got infected. She almost died."

"Did you blame yourself?" Joe asked.

Did he? _Had_ he? "For a while, but I let it go. Nothing happens without a reason. I believe that."

Joe's reaction was startling. His back stiffened, his nostrils flared. Anger entered his eyes. "That's _bull._ That's what my pa always says and look where it's got him. Three wives dead! One son deserting and then other dying before his time – "

"And the last one disappearing without a word," Charles said softly.

The other man was breathing hard. "Yeah, that too."

"So, you're not plannin' on goin' back?"

Joe looked away but said nothing.

"Well," Charles said, rising. "You're a grown man and you'll do what you feel you have to do. I've just got one more thing to say and then I think we better both get to bed."

"What's that?" the injured man demanded.

"All that suffering – your pa's, yours...mine and Caroline's. If God ain't in control and it all happens for nothin' – ain't that _worse?"_ He looked at the other man who refused to look at him. "But then, maybe you know that. Maybe that's why you're runnin'." Charles stepped over and placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. "Nothin' stays lost forever, Joe. In time, you'll come home."

He lifted his hand before the other man could react and headed for the door.

"See you in the mornin'," Charles said as he lifted the latch and stepped outside.

The last thing he saw was Joe's tear-streaked face cut against the pink-orange glow of the fire.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Clayton Crew stretched his arms above his head and walked in place, working the kinks out that came from crouching in a thicket of plum bushes. As soon as Dave had left for Sleepy Eye and the telegraph office where he intended to wire Mister Poavey and tell him they had found Joe Cartwright, he had traveled east along Middle Ridge-fire road until he came to the Ingalls' place. Once there he'd taken up a position to the west of the house where he could keep watch. A few minutes before the man Nellie had fingered as Joe Cartwright had left the barn and headed into the house. Since they didn't want to arouse suspicions they hadn't asked anyone why he would be here. Maybe the Ingalls were friends of Ben Cartwrights, or maybe Joe had business with them. Whatever the reason he was welcome in the house, but sleeping in the barn. He'd watched him do a few light chores, so maybe he was working for food and board. The puzzlement was that he wasn't moving on to La Crosse, though there were rumors that Joe Cartwright never intended to make that meeting.

That since that woman of his had died, he just wasn't right.

It made him no nevermind. All Mister Poavey wanted to do was make sure that Joe Cartwright's father, Ben, didn't interfere with his business in Minnesota. Poavey had pretty much cornered the market for supplying lumber to all of the eastern concerns and he wanted to keep it that way. Though the rumor was Ben Cartwright only wanted to increase his business out west by working with the western subsidiaries of some of the men attending the meeting, Will didn't believe it. The world was getting smaller every day with the trains and the telegraph and all the other new-fangled contraptions that were being invented. He believed Cartwright intended to move in on his business and take over.

Poavey said that old man Cartwright wouldn't be satisfied until he held the timber rights for the whole country.

His partner, Dave Donavan, didn't like the Cartwrights at all and that bothered him. Instead of this just being a job, the blond man had a personal grudge he'd been nursing ever since Joe Cartwright sent him to prison. When he'd questioned Dave about what they were going to do now that they'd found Joe, Dave smiled and said, 'Stop him.' Two words. Two words that in his mind added up to murder.

And he didn't want any part in murder.

Still, he was too afraid to walk away. He knew Dave had killed before and he had no desire to become his next victim. So if it came down to it and Dave meant to kill Cartwright, he'd just walk away.

See no evil. Hear no evil.

 _Be_ no evil.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Pa?"

Ben Cartwright halted and put his satchel down. It was near five in the morning and he thought he'd managed to come down the staircase unnoticed. His shoulders slumped as he recognized Jamie's voice. Ben quickly placed the note he had meant to leave for the boy on the credenza inside his coat and then turned toward the stair.

He was determined to keep the boy out of this.

"What're you doin', Pa?" Jamie asked as he descended the steps. For a second Ben's heart raced. With the dim morning light and that thick head of hair and his nightshirt on, he could almost have imagined it was Joe twelve or thirteen years before. "You goin' somewhere?"

"I couldn't sleep, son. I was going to ride into town and check the telegraph office to see if there was any word."

"About Joe."

"Yes."

The boy stopped at his side. His blue eyes fixed on his face. "You're not a very good liar, Pa."

"What...what do you mean?" he huffed.

"You're goin' after Joe, aren't you?"

Ben meant to bluff it. He'd intended to. Instead, he nodded. "Yes."

"Let me come with you."

"Jamie, no. I have no idea what I'll be riding into. I can't chance – "

"Joe's your son, Pa, but he's _my_ brother." The boy paused. "He's my family too."

Ben's eyes teared. He placed a hand on Jamie's shoulders. "I need you _here_ , to look after things."

"You know that ain't true. Pete's a good foreman. He can run the ranch." The boy paused. "Pa, you need me with _you_. What if..." He drew a steadying breath. "What if the news ain't good?"

He'd tried not to consider any possible outcome other than finding Joe alive and well. Still, his son's mental health had been precarious at the time he left. It was why he had sent him to Minnesota to begin with. He'd hoped the change of scenery would help Joe to let go of the past that was so much a part of the Ponderosa and the land he was born to inherit.

What if it had, instead, driven him over the edge?

"Pa? Please don't leave me behind."

He looked at the boy – so eager, so earnest. Fear for Jamie was a part of his hesitation. These were powerful men they were dealing with in Minnesota. It was a possibility that Joe had run afoul of one of the men out for the same lucrative contracts they were interested in, and he would be taking the boy into danger. And yet, what right did he have to deny him? Jamie'd lost Hoss as well and had, in a way, already lost Joe long before his third boy left on this journey.

At this moment all they had was each other.

"All right, son," he said. "The train leaves at nine-fifteen. Can you be ready in half an hour?"

He expected a smile. Instead, he got a sober look and a nod. "We'll find Joe, Pa."

Ben was without words. He squeezed the boy's shoulder. No, not boy.

Young _man._

As he watched Jamie mount the stairs two at a time and head down the corridor toward his room, Ben sighed. He'd wanted one thing and apparently God had wanted another.

It was no surprise who had won.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dave Donavan paced the telegraph office in Sleepy Eye. It was near closing and he didn't want to wait until the morning to see if there was a reply to his message to Will Poavey. Of course, he had his orders, but before he carried them out he wanted to know just how far Will was willing to go to stop the Cartwrights from expanding their timber business in the east. Every day the world was getting smaller with the trains and the telegram. There was even a newfangled thing on the horizon called the 'speaking telegraph' that a man named Manzetti had invented. It was hard to imagine that one day you'd be able to speak and someone somewhere across the country would be able to answer.

"Mister Donavan?" the telegraph operator called, looking around like he'd already forgotten what he looked like.

"That's me."

"You got a reply, sir."

He'd already paid his money so Dave took the message and stepped outside. Once on the porch he read it. It was only eight words, but they were the words he wanted.

WANT CARTWRIGHT STOPPED. STOP. DO ANYTHING NECESSARY. STOP.

Dave's lips curled in a sneer.

 _Anything_ necessary.

This was going to be fun.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe Cartwright returned to the Ingalls' bedroom but not to the bed. Though his leg was aching fiercely, he refused to give in and went instead to the window to look out. Surrounding Charles Ingalls' house were acres of ripening corn, which he knew the man had planted by hand. Charles life was simple – rise in the morning, care for his animals and tend his crops, spend time with his children, and then go to bed with his beautiful wife. Charles' life was a like a still, calm lake of family and faith while his was a crashing, roaring, raging sea of loss and conflicting emotions. There were times when he didn't understand himself. It was as if there was something within him that simply _could_ not be content. Adam had told him more than once that he was just like his mother; that Marie had had a quixotic nature and a quick temper and from one minute to the next you never knew what you were going to get. You hung, waiting for her smile, because it was the most wonderful thing in the world, but at the same time you wanted to hide in case that smile disappeared and what she dished out instead was disapproval and scorn. He'd tried not to be like that. He'd tried to be a good man – a steady honorable _faithful_ man like his father and like Charles Ingalls – but whatever it was that was in him fought like a mountain lion against it. For most of his life there had been a balance, like that between day and night. The smiles and laughter had been equal to the dark thing that reared up inside him, showing itself in anger and disobedience.

Since Alice and the baby had died, since Tanner had tormented him...the darkness was winning.

He really wanted a drink.

Moving to the edge of the bed, Joe sat down. He'd ask the doctor tomorrow. Brandy or whiskey were cure-alls and since he _was_ in pain, a bottle should be a request that wouldn't be turned down. He'd take it easy. Just a sip or two to dull things, to make the memories go away. It was hard here, in the middle of a family, seeing the children, seeing Charles with his pretty blonde wife when his was dead...

 _Mighty_ hard.

As soon as he could sit a horse he'd move on and leave these good people be. He still didn't know where he would go. Maybe he'd go to La Crosse as he had intended to do in the beginning, spend some time there, and then return to the Ponderosa. Maybe he'd wire his pa and tell him he needed a little more time and travel on to Boston and see if he could find some word of Adam.

Or maybe he'd book passage on one of the ships that came into the harbor and take off for parts unknown.

Joe eased his way up onto the bed and put his weary head back on the pillows. Whichever he chose, it would be a few days before he needed to worry about it. He could get around, but it was important to let himself heal. For the time being he would have to accept the Ingalls' hospitality. He wanted to talk to Laura again anyway, to make certain she didn't hold onto any blame. She was a little too much like him, that little brown-haired girl. Joe Cartwright in female form.

He wondered if his child had been a girl.

Devastated, Joe dissolved into tears and lay weeping until the light broke in the sky.


	8. Chapter 7

SEVEN

Charles Ingalls stepped back and looked at the man sitting on the bed. Joe Cartwright was pale and breathing hard and nothing if not determined. He was up and dressed. Caroline had laid out a pair of his trousers and that extra plaid shirt she'd made him out of the same material Mary had chosen for his Christmas present the year before. He felt like a rich man with two shirts exactly the same! Joe looked good in the blue and green fabric with that silver hair of his shining in the morning light that streamed in the window. It had been something getting him into the trousers, working over that bandaged leg, but the second Doctor Baker had declared him fit to leave the bed behind no amount of pain was going to stop the younger man from sitting at the breakfast table with them. Behind him, in the kitchen, he could hear Caroline giving orders to the girls. All three were up and dressed and ready to head out to school as soon as they finished eating. They were helping to set the table now and were looking forward to getting to know Joe a little better.

Doctor Baker had come that morning right at the crack of dawn. He'd been up and out and tending to the animals when he heard the physician's buggy roll in. Caroline was rousing the girls as he and the Doc entered the house and went to the room where the wounded man lay. Hiram checked Joe's arm and leg wounds, pronounced them nearly infection free, and said they were healing nicely. The blond man remarked on Joe's amazing constitution, mentioning that wounds like that would have laid most any other men low for near on a month. Doc Baker had looked over his shoulder at _him_ and made a remark about 'the fastest healing ribs in the East' before turning back to the other man and finishing his examination. At the end he told Joe he could get up and do a little bit of light work if his leg would take it.

They could both tell that the younger man was champing at the bit to be on the move.

Leaving Joe in the room and telling him he'd be back soon to help him dress, Charles had accompanied the medical man outside at his request, figuring the Doc had some instructions for him concerning their guest. When they got to the physician's buggy, Hiram turned and looked back at the house. As he did, he frowned.

" _Is there somethin' wrong?" he asked._

 _The blond man pursed his lips. "I'm not sure."_

" _You said Joe was better."_

" _Oh, he's better – physically – its his mental condition that has me worried." He answered as he glanced at him. "You know he's depressed."_

 _He nodded._

" _Joe asked me to give him whiskey for the pain." Hiram's eyes were trained on the house. "He's a grown man and he's in pain, so I couldn't really say 'no'. I left a bottle with him."_

 _Charles sensed there was more. "And?"_

" _Just check the contents when you get a chance. I told him to take no more than one or two ounces every four hours or so." Hiram looked at him, his bright blue eyes narrowed. "I could tell by the way he downed the first dose that he's no stranger to liquor."_

" _Joe doesn't strike me as an inebriate," he replied._

" _I don't think he is," Doc Baker answered. "I think he's a man with a demon plaguing him and the alcohol puts it to sleep for a time. But you know what that can do to a man. That demon wakes up and its angrier and harder to subdue the next time."_

" _I'll keep watch."_

" _Thank you, Charles. I really do feel he's an admirable young man. I think life has handed him some hard blows that he doesn't think he can weather. Maybe you can help him to see that he can."_

" _I'm willing to try," he replied._

 _The Doc was staring at him. "Remarkable," he said._

" _What?"_

" _The resemblance. You two look like you were cut out of the same mold ten years apart."_

 _Charles laughed. "With him looking older or me?"_

 _Doctor Baker returned his grin. "Well, with that gray hair he has, I'm betting most people would think you were the younger one." He paused and added with a wink, "Looks like Caroline's been robbing the cradle."_

That conversation had taken place two hours before. He'd eyed the bottle now and looked full.

Maybe Joe did just need it for the pain.

"You ready?" he asked with a smile.

Joe looked up at him and nodded. Charles had fashioned a crutch for the wounded man. He handed it to him now and watched as Joe found his balance with it. He nodded his thanks and said, "It's great. But I can get around without it."

"The Doc thought it was best to keep your weight off of your leg for a few more days. You may not need it, but it can't hurt."

"Charles?" Caroline called from the other room.

"What is it, Darlin'?" he replied.

"Breakfast is ready whenever you and Joe are."

He glanced at Joe who nodded and then replied, "Be there shortly!"

Charles let Joe enter the passageway before him. Trailing behind he watched as the young man maneuvered his way down it and into the common room. From the look of it, it wouldn't' be too long before Joe'd be able to be up and around, though riding a horse was gonna take longer. Maybe he could find a few simple chores for Joe to do today. He knew what it was like being forced to rest when you felt you were capable of being up and about things. It always chafed on him. He was sure it did on Joe too.

After breakfast, he'd take him outside. It would do him good.

Caroline smiled in greeting as Joe Cartwright appeared at the end of the hall.

"Well, good morning!" she said cheerfully.

Joe nodded as he made his way to the table. Charles took the crutch from him and she watched as Joe gingerly lowered himself into one of the wooden chairs.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

Another nod. "It's good."

"Mary, please bring the bread to the table."

"I got the jam, Ma," Laura said. "Blackberry."

Joe smiled at her. "Now how did you know that was my favorite?"

Her middle daughter beamed as her placed the jam jar on the table. "Mine too!"

"Did you make it?" he asked.

"She helped," Caroline answered. "All the girls did."

"All?" he asked, seemingly puzzled. "I thought you only had two."

"Three!" Charles declared as he came into the room with Carrie in his arms. "You were so sick we figured you didn't need a young'un under foot. This is Carrie. Carrie, say 'hi' to Joe."

Carrie looked at the young man and then at her pa, and then back. She looked confused too. Finally, her little fingers curled and she waved.

Joe smiled. It was forced.

"Morning, Carrie," he said. "Nice to meet you."

Charles put her down. She crossed over to Joe and reached out. For a moment, their guest appeared confused. Then he snorted. Bending down, Joe let their youngest child touch his silver-gray hair.

"Pretty," she said.

Caroline heard her husband snicker. "We'll see if she says that when _I_ go gray."

Carrie continued to look at Joe. Then she started to climb into his lap.

"Whoa!" Charles said. "Joe's got a bad leg, Carrie."

"It's all right." The young man's voice was strained. "I can take it."

Caroline watched as Joe positioned their youngest on his good leg. He smiled at Carrie as she reached up and touched his cheek.

Then, tears entered his eyes.

Charles waited a moment before scooping Carrie up and taking her to her chair. "You girls are gonna be late for school if you don't quit lollygagging'," he said. "Best get to it."

"Yes, sir," Mary and Laura said in chorus.

During breakfast the girls asked Joe about where he came from. He told them his pa had a ranch in Nevada. When they found out Nevada was almost two thousand miles away they couldn't believe anyone could travel that far. Then their pa reminded them that the home they'd had in Kansas was about one thousand miles away and between getting there and coming back they'd traveled just as far as Joe had. That made their eyes light up! Joe asked them then about their journeys and Charles told him about starting in Pepin, Wisconsin and the long road that had brought them to Walnut Grove.

As she listened to them talk Caroline realized the two men had a lot in common. Both were strong and determined, quick to laugh and quick to shed tears. They both felt things deeply and seemed to be driven by an inner sense of right and wrong. There was one difference though that made the two men like night and day.

When Charles said grace before they started their meal, Joe hadn't bowed his head.

Now the girls were clearing the dishes and grabbing their school books and kissing her and their pa goodbye before running out of the door, shouting hurried goodbyes. Carrie had climbed down from her chair and gone back to Joe. It was amazing how young attraction began. She needed to go to the outhouse and she asked Joe to take her.

Before either one of them could scold her, Joe agreed.

"I need the exercise," he said as he grabbed his crutch and headed for the door. He nodded as Charles opened it for him and then watched the younger man move across the stoop and onto the ground. Carrie ran beside him, dancing and chattering along as Joe painfully made his way to the small shack outside.

Charles turned and looked at her. "Did you see?"

She nodded. "Poor man. He's lost so much."

Her husband looked thoughtful. "When he came here, I believed God had sent him so we could help him. I'm not so sure now. He doesn't seem to _want_ help."

"Joe's as stubborn as you are, Charles," she said, crossing to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. "He's bound and determined life's been unfair to him."

Charles circled her waist with his arm. "I wonder who taught him to expect otherwise?"

She paused and then said. "In some ways, he reminds me of the girls. I think Joe's still a child at heart, and that child has been devastated by everything its been handed."

He was silent a moment. Then Charles said quietly, "Joe must be very dear to God's heart."

"Oh?"

He nodded. "When Freddie died, the reverend told me God can't bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply."

She leaned her head on her husband's shoulder. She knew how much the loss of their son had hurt him. He loved his girls, but he had _so_ wanted a boy. She took his hand.

"Then it up to us to show Joe he has not been abandoned, and that God has a purpose for his life."

Charles looked at her. He leaned down and kissed her and then let her go.

"Right now," he said, nodding toward the young man who was steadily hobbling toward them with Carrie at his side, "I'd say that purpose was to help get the milkin' done. Look at him go!"

Clayton Crew stirred and looked up. The sun was past its zenith. He'd apparently fallen asleep on the watch. It wasn't so much that he was tired as he was just plain bored. He'd watched Joe Cartwright come out of the house and go to the barn at the beginning of the day. It seemed he had been right and Cartwright was working for the Ingalls for some reason. Maybe for room and board, he didn't know. But he sure was work prickle. The last time he'd seen him he'd been checking fences. That had been about seven o'clock in the morning.

Dave was not gonna be happy if he'd lost track of him.

The black-haired man sat up and stretched, and then climbed to his feet and shifted forward until he was right behind the clump of plum bushes. It was a good vantage point, a little ways up a hill. He had a clear view of the Ingalls' house and yard. Rising up, he looked over the tips of the leaves and let out a sigh of relief. Cartwright was there. Walking toward the barn. There was another man following him. He was older, with gray hair, and was moving like he'd been injured. He had a crutch and was obviously favoring his left leg. Clayton nodded as he watched the two men enter the barn. That explained it. Charles Ingalls was injured and Joe Cartwright was lending a hand until he recovered. Maybe they were friends. Or maybe Cartwright's father knew the man. Whatever it was, it explained the rancher's son staying on the Ingalls' farm instead of heading to La Crosse.

As he continued to watch, Clayton heard a horse blow air and a voice call out, "Whoa!" Rising, he returned to the place where he'd been sleeping and found Dave Donavan dismounting.

"Hey, Dave," he said, "you get an answer from Poavey?"

Dave walked toward him. "Sure did. Nothing's changed. We're to stop Joe and send a clear signal to Ben Cartwright that him and his business ain't wanted here." The blond man looked past him. "Joe still at the Ingalls' place?"

Clayton nodded. "Looks like Ingalls is injured and Joe's helping out. The farmer's using a crutch. I think somethin' happened to his leg."

"Oh?" Dave pushed past him. He went to the bushes and crouched down. "Where are they now?"

"In the barn," he said as he joined the other man.

"You been watchin' the routine?"

Dave had asked him to do that before he went. "Yeah. Same everyday. Up at the crack of dawn checking on the animals. Breakfast with Ingalls and his family. Back out to do more chores and then into the fields." He paused. "Then back again to tend the animals and work in the barn at the end of the day."

The blond man looked at the sky. "It's about one o'clock. So that means we got us some time to rest. About eight hours, I reckon."

"What happens in eight hours?" Clayton asked.

"That's the time it gets dark. Cartwright will be in the barn. We can take him then."

The black-haired man frowned. "Take him? What for?"

"We're gonna teach Joe Cartwright some manners. He needs to learn where he's wanted and where he's not."

Clayton heard something he didn't like in the other man's voice. "You're not plannin' on hurtin' him? I mean, _really_ hurtin' him? Are you?"

"Me?" Dave laughed. "Why, Joe and me is old friends. I just want to talk to him and, maybe, do a little persuadin'."

Clayton looked over his shoulder. The gray-haired man was leaving the barn and heading back to the house. "What about Ingalls?"

Dave sat down and then laid back on the grass, pulling his hat over his eyes. "We'll just have to hope Mister Ingalls stays out of our way."

"What if he doesn't?"

For a moment Dave remained still. Then he tipped his hat up and focused his pale, cold eyes on him.

"Then Mister Ingalls will be laid up for a while longer."

He and Joe had worked hard through the afternoon. Several times he'd asked the younger man if he wanted to stop, but Joe had insisted he was fine. He'd managed to milk the cow using his right hand. The cats had been happy as Joe spilled about as much as he got in the bucket. Still, he wasn't going to say anything since it seemed important to the other man to be doing things. Joe was good with tackle and he'd cleaned and greased the harnesses, checking all the points and making sure everything was in order. He'd braided leather straps and helped him to fix an old wagon wheel and then, suddenly, he'd worn out. He was standing now, watching Joe work his way back to the house. The work had done him good. The difference between the possible and the impossible lay in a person's determination and Joe Cartwright was about the most determined individual he'd ever met. Charles grinned.

'Present company excluded,' Caroline would say.

Having finished for the moment in the barn, Charles put on his hat and headed out the door. The crops were waiting. The corn wasn't completely ripe, but it was close. It was gonna be hard what with the mill starting up again and the crop coming ripe at the same time. Having Joe here might just turn out to be a blessing, unless of course he decided to up and disappear in the middle of the night once his wounds were mostly healed.

It wouldn't surprise him.

The problem was – and Joe didn't seem to know this – that there wasn't any way you could run far enough or hard enough when the one you were running from was yourself. It was always there, for all of them, that yearning to escape. He'd felt it when Freddie died. For just a moment – one gut-wrenching moment – he'd wanted to run too. _Everything_ hurt. Seeing the girls without their little brother in their arms. Looking at Caroline, her arms empty too, and seeing the pain in her eyes.

Looking at himself in the mirror and wondering if there was something more he could have done.

The difference between him and Joe was that, much as he hurt, he hadn't tried to run from God. Now, once God had you, He was gonna hold onto you. The Lord Jehovah was jealous, Deuteronomy said, ' _For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.'_ There weren't no way God was gonna let Joe Cartwright go whether he wanted Him to or not. Something was gonna come into Joe's life that would show him the truth and, knowing the Lord, it wasn't gonna be simple or easy or anything Joe wanted.

It was gonna be cold, hard truth.

Charles shifted his hat on his head. He glanced at the house. Joe had disappeared inside. He'd be alone as Caroline had gone to town to deliver eggs and then wait on the girls. They had a meeting at the school after class was over to make plans for the Thanksgiving program, and then the Edwards had invited them for supper. He'd been invited too, but he'd declined.

He didn't think it was wise to leave Joe alone.

Joe had fallen asleep the minute his head hit the pillow. He woke now to early evening shadows and a pale wash of purple-pink light spilling in the open window. Sitting up, he tested his leg and then cautiously rose to his feet. It hurt like Hell, but he was able to put his weight on it and grinned as he limped over to the window without the crutch. In the distance he could see Charles Ingalls moving through his fields. The farmer was checking the grain, no doubt feeling blessed and fulfilled like a man should after a hard day's labor.

He didn't feel full. He felt empty.

It had started when Charles youngest girl had climbed into his lap and the feeling had continued throughout the day as he made himself useful, hoping the ache would go away or at least be lost somewhere in pain and fatigue. Sadly, like the close-fitting gloves he had donned, he seemed unable to shed it. As he stood there, looking out, he grew angry with himself. Why was he so _weak?_ Why _couldn't_ he move on? His pa had lost _three_ wives, for God's sake! He'd only lost one. Charles had lost a son. Charles whose faith was unshaken. Why was his? Why couldn't he reconcile the good and loving God his father had taught him about with the one who had let his brother die so young, let his _family_ die – let him be tortured...

Joe sank to the bed. He knew why. It was something else his pa always said. "Nothing happens that God does not permit or allow, son. _'The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord',_ he'd quote.

So God allowed Alice and his child to burn to death. God allowed Hoss to die. God allowed Bill Tanner to hunt him down like an animal and to torment and torture him and almost kill him.

Why?

 _WHY?_

Joe sucked in a sob and then turned and looked at the bottle of whiskey on the table. An ounce or two. That's all he'd take. An ounce or two to dull the pain.

Or, maybe three.

When Charles returned from the fields, he went to the house.

Joe was gone.

He looked everywhere. In the loft. In the outhouse. At the sod house and around outside. Finally, he headed for the barn and that was where he found him, slumped in the corner of a stall, covered with mud and muck and the stinking filth left by the horses; an empty whiskey bottle in his hand.

Dead drunk.

Charles was a patient man, not easily riled.

But he had had enough.

Striding across the barn, his anger mounting with each step, he bent and caught Joe by the collar of his borrowed shirt and hauled him to his feet. Joe blinked and fought for focus. His green eyes were glassy. Charles shouldn't have, but he shook him.

Hard.

"What is _wrong_ with you? Do you think you are the only man in the world who has suffered loss? Wake up! You're not alone!" He paused to draw a calming breath. He was angry, but his heart bled for this man. "You _will_ be alone if you don't _stop_ this!"

Joe scoffed. He almost lost his footing, but steadied himself with a hand to the stall wall. "Maybe I _want_ to be alone."

"So you want to be alone? Well, what about those who love you? "

"They're dead," he whined.

"They're dead? They're _all_ dead. What about your father? Joe? Do you ever think of him?"

"I _always_ think of him!" he snapped.

"Oh. _Do you?_ Did you think of him when you left that train without leaving word where you were going? Did you think of a father's pain when his child goes missing? Did you think of what _he_ would think of you drinking yourself into a stupor? Does _this_ make him proud?"

That stung. Joe scowled. "You leave my pa out of this."

"It's _you_ brought him into this when you turned away from everything he taught you! When you took to drinkin' to drown your sorrows." He shook him again. His voice broke. "Do you have any idea how you are breaking your father's heart? You need to be a man. You need to _grow up!"_

Apparently _those_ were fighting words for Joe Cartwright. He stiffened, bellowed like an angry bull –

And charged.

Charles had thought he was prepared. He wasn't. Joe Cartwright was a well-muscled man, formed by a life of ranching, and he had all the fury of desperation behind him. The power of his charge drove them both into the stall wall and splintered the boards at his back.

For a moment he thought his back had broken with them.

They were both laying on the ground, breathing hard. Joe was pounding on him, but he was sobbing harder than he struck.

"God. God. God," he said, over and over. "God..."

He caught the grieving man's fist with his hand. Joe raised his head and they looked at one another.

Then Charles drew him into his arms and let him cry.

"They're both in the barn," Clayton said. "I saw them go in."

Dave nodded. "There's no one else here. Ingalls' wife and kids are gone. Now's the time."

"You're sure about this? They'll come lookin' for him, you know?"

"Who? The men in the town? They don't care one lick about a stranger."

The black-haired man frowned. "What about Ingalls?"

Dave 's lips curled with a smirk. "We ain't gonna take him. We're just gonna put him out of commission for a while. Shouldn't be hard with that game leg of his."

Clayton swallowed over a lump of fear. When he'd first signed on with Dave to carry out Mister Poavey's orders, he'd liked the other man. The more he got to know him, that 'like' was turning to fear. When it came to the Cartwrights, Dave was unhinged.

"You ain't gonna kill Cartwright, are you?" he asked again.

"Not so long as he behaves," Dave sneered. "Then again, Joe Cartwright ain't ever been known _to_ behave."

Joe was completely spent. He couldn't even lift his head. He was laying on top of Charles in the middle of the barn floor, his head and body aching like he'd been run over in a stampede. His arm was hurting too and he was bleeding again. He could feel the blood spreading underneath the homespun cloth of the trousers he wore. When he lifted his head the world spun. Charles was leaning back, his hands anchored in the matted straw that lined the barn floor.

"Are you done?" the older man asked.

Joe snorted. He nodded and then tried to extricate himself from the tangled mess they were in by raising up on his arms and crawling backwards. He made it about three feet before he felt the urge to throw up. Charles shifted to his knees and held him as he lost every bit of food in his stomach. Chagrinned he looked up at the other man.

"Well," Charles said with a tolerant smile, "it ain't like I could smell any worse."

Joe muttered something.

"What was that?"

"...sorry."

Charles refused to let him look away. "Are you? Are you _really?"_

He nodded, and then retched again.

"I never thought I'd find a man more wretched with drinking than Isaiah," the other man said softly. "You take the cake, Joseph Francis Cartwright. You know that?"

Joe snorted. "You sound like my pa."

"Your _long-sufferin'_ pa, I imagine." Charles shifted and rose to his feet. Rising, he held his hand out. "Can you stand?"

"...don't know."

"Well, since I don't think the barn floor is doin' any good for that leg wound, let's give it a try. All right?" He wiggled his fingers. "Take hold."

Joe shook his head. His consciousness was drifting. "I'll just sleep here..."

He heard the other man sigh. "I ain't leavin' you layin' out here in the cold all night. Doc Baker'll have my hide." Joe felt the other man's arms circle his waist. "Come on, Joe. Give me some help here."

He didn't have the strength to fight and so Joe put everything he had left in him into getting to his feet. Charles held him as he wobbled and then, together, they began to make their way back to the house. They had just left the barn behind when Charles stopped.

"What's wrong?" Joe asked, slurring even those two words.

Charles was frowning. "You hear that?"

Joe listened. It sounded like a dog barking in the distance – or from within a structure.

"So?"

The older man stiffened. "That's Jack. Somethin's –"

"Cartwright!" a man declared.

Joe turned toward the sound. So did Charles. The older man let go of him and took a step forward.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

It was all Joe could do to stand under his own power. He blinked back the blackness that threatened to take him and tried to focus on Charles. The brown-haired man fell back a step as another man – a thin blond man with a narrow face and cold calculating blue eyes – approached.

He had a gun in his hand.

"Don't pretend you don't know me, Cartwright," he said. "You sent me to Hell and I'm here to return the favor."

Joe saw Charles falter. He glanced back at him and then turned to face the man with the gun. "Wait. You don't think – "

Like a snake the man's arm shot out, the side of the pistol taking Charles in the head and driving him to the ground.

"And as for you, Ingalls..." The blond man smiled. "Nighty night."

Joe heard the sound a second too late. There was another man behind him. He realized it only as the butt of a rifle struck him in the back of the head.

And then there was silence.


	9. Chapter 8

EIGHT

Caroline stood with the girls waving goodbye to Isaiah Edwards. Their friend had insisted on bringing them home even though he was dead tired and had to be on the road fairly early the next morning. He was taking a run to Sleepy Eye for the mill. Isaiah tried to talk her into letting him deliver them to the door, but she had insisted they could walk the last hundred or so yards from the road to the house by themselves so he could get going. Mary had her little sister in her arms. Carrie was nearly asleep. Laura was lagging behind, her eyes to the sky, commenting on how beautiful it was with the stars twinkling and the moon shining bright. Caroline's mind was on other things. She wondered what had transpired between Charles and Joe. She knew her husband intended to talk to the Joe as they worked and she hoped he'd made some progress.

The poor man was a misery to himself.

"Ma," Mary said, drawing her attention. "How come there aren't any lights in the house?"

Caroline halted. "What?"

Mary nodded toward the wooden building, standing in silhouette in the distance. "Was Pa going somewhere?"

When she looked, she realized her oldest was correct. The house was dark. A quick glance at the barn told her it was the same.

Would Charles be working without any light?

"Maybe your father is in the field," she said. "There's enough moonlight."

Mary shrugged. "I guess so. And I guess Joe could be asleep."

"That's right," she sighed with relief. It made sense. Turning back to her straggler, she said, "Laura, get a lantern from the barn and go see if you can find your father. I'm going to take Carrie inside and put her to bed." As she accepted her youngest from her oldest, she added, "Mary, you go with Laura. I'll feel better with two of you wandering around in the dark than one."

"Sure thing, Ma," Mary said as they made the transfer.

Once in her arms, Carrie snuggled up against her. Caroline breathed in the scent of the little girl, which was a mix of soap, sweetness, and sugar from the cookies she'd eaten at the Edwards. These were the times when she felt most deeply all the Lord had done for her. A lovely home to return to. The man she loved working to keep it. Her children's love.

"What more could a woman want?" she sighed softly as she headed for the door.

Caroline was reaching for the latch when she stopped. The blonde woman turned and frowned. She'd heard a sound. Something or someone whimpering. Moving into the yard, she listened. It took a moment but she finally recognized it as Jack. Not only did the dog sound unhappy, it sounded like he was closed in somewhere.

Now why would Charles have confined him...

"Ma!"

It was Mary. She turned toward her. "Yes?"

"Pa's not in the field."

Laura came to a halt beside her. As usual, her hasty one was out of breath. "I ran most all the field, Ma. He's not there."

Caroline's heart thumped hard in her chest. Something was wrong. It was hard to explain it why, but she _knew_ it. Their yard, their fields, their home, they all felt...empty.

"Where do you think Pa is, Ma?"

There was one hope yet – that Charles was in the house with Joe. Maybe he'd talked to the wounded man and they'd both been so worn out that they'd called it a night. Caroline clung to that thought as she returned to the stoop. Mary and Laura trailed close behind her.

"Ma."

It was a single word Mary spoke and it stabbed her like a knife.

"Yes?" she asked, trembling.

"What's that?"

Her oldest was pointing down. There was something dark on the ground. It trailed up onto the stoop and went right up to the door.

"Mary, come take your sister."

The blonde girl came and did as she was told. Laura stood at her side. Caroline smiled at them – a reassuring smile, she hoped – and then knelt and placed her finger in the dark substance. Lifting it to her lips, she tasted it.

Blood.

Rising, she stood there, unsure of what to do. It was apparent someone or something had been dragged into the house and who or whatever it was, had been bleeding. Caroline glanced at her girls. What would she find when she opened the door? What was it _they_ would see?

"Take your sisters and go see if you can find Jack. It sounds like he's been caged somewhere," she told Mary.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And Mary?"

The blonde girl turned back to look at her.

"Stay outside until I tell you to come in."

Her daughter's expression said it all, but she listened and obeyed. Laura paused before trailing after her. "You want me to come in with you, Ma?"

She touched her head. "No. Go with your sister."

"Do you think... Do you think something's happened to Joe...or to Pa?"

All of her own fears were reflected in the little girl's eyes. "Go with you sister."

Laura looked at the door and then back at her. "Yes, ma'am," she said and was gone.

Caroline stood with her hand on the door latch, gathering courage and strength, and then opened it and went inside. The house was pitch-black. No lamp was lit. There was no fire. The only light came from the moon shining through the windows.

"Charles?" she called as she stepped inside. "Charles are you here?"

As she moved toward the interior, she felt her shoes slip as they encountered more of the sticky substance on the floor. The blonde woman's breath was coming fast. She felt like she was in a dream.

"Charles?"

A second later her foot struck something soft laying in her path. She knelt down and felt about with her hands. It was a man. He had fallen on his back with his head toward the wall and his feet near the table. Kneeling, she reached for his head and gasped as her hands encountered a mass of thick sweat-soaked curls.

Caroline swallowed. "Charles?"

A moan answered her. Small. Weak.

Still, it meant he was alive.

"Charles?"

A hand gripped hers. A man spoke. "Took...him."

She recognized the timbre. It wasn't her husband. "Joe?"

He grunted as he shifted. "Yes..."

The blonde woman placed a hand on his face. "Joe, what happened? Where's Charles?"

"Don't...know. Men took...him." He drew a ragged breath. "Thought he...was me."

"What?"

Joe tried to sit up. She hesitated and then helped him, pulling him up by his good arm and propping him against one of the chairs butted up against the table. As he leaned his head back, Joe sighed.

"I don't know who...they were. They were...looking for me. They thought Charles _was_ me."

"But why?" Then she had it. Looking at him, sitting there, with the moonlight striking that gray hair, she realized that anyone who saw the two of them together from a distance – who knew Joe was _younger_ – would assume that Joe Cartwright was the one with dark brown hair.

Fear for her husband brought tears to her eyes. "Who would be after you? Who would know you were _here?"_ Her jaw tightened. "Is there something you haven't told us?"

"No. But there _was_ something familiar about that blond man." He licked his lips. "My head hurts... Can't place it."

She'd been so worried about Charles she'd forgotten Joe had been injured again. After all, she'd followed a trail of blood leading into the house.

"Where are you hurt?" she asked.

"Hit me with a rifle butt," he said. "Got a monumental headache. Blood's from the leg. It's bleeding again."

"Ma? Can we come in?"

Caroline pivoted toward the door. She'd forgotten about the girls. Turning back to Joe, she asked, "Can you get up?"

His eyes followed her gaze. She could see he didn't want to frighten the girls anymore than he had to. "What are you gonna tell them?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "I don't know."

Joe was silent a moment. "I'm sorry I brought this on you."

"You didn't. You don't even know what it's about." Caroline took hold of his right arm again. "See if you can stand."

The wounded man sucked in air as he rose and let her lead him to the chair before the hearth. As she started to walk away, he caught her hand. "Caroline, the man who...took Charles. He said I'd sent him to Hell and he was here to repay me. He knew me. If I could just place him..."

Here to 'repay' him. _God_ , Caroline prayed, _protect Charles!_

"Ma?"

"Just a minute, Mary!" she called back. Grabbing a blanket, she tucked it around Joe. She'd get a fire going as soon as she got the girls settled and then see to that leg.

Crossing to the door, Caroline drew a steadying breath and then stepped outside.

Her daughters saw it instantly. Written in her face.

"Has something happened to Pa?" Laura asked, her little voice shaking.

She wanted to lie. She was _going_ to lie.

Looking at that small frightened face, she _couldn't_ lie.

"Yes," she breathed.

Both girls stared at her. After a second, Mary said, "I'll put Carrie in bed, Ma."

Caroline nodded. "Thank you."

As Mary disappeared inside, Laura came up to her and put her arms around her and held her. She didn't say a word. They stood there together, staring into the darkness, imagining the worst.

And praying for the best.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles awoke bound and gagged in the back of a wagon that was jostling over uneven ground. His head ached and he could taste blood, so he knew the blow he had taken from the pistol had broken the skin. He couldn't tell if his eyesight was clear, so he had no way of knowing if he had a concussion, though the excessive ringing in his ears and the fact that he felt dizzy sort of made him figure he did. At least a light one. As he lay there, not knowing where he was going or who it was that had taken him, he thought back to the words that had been spoken when he and Joe had stepped outside of the barn.

 _Don't pretend you don't know me, Cartwright. You sent me to Hell and I'm here to return the favor._

Whoever it was had him, thought he was Joe Cartwright. There was no mistaking the resemblance and all he could figure was that, even though he was six or seven years older, with his dark hair he looked younger. There was also something that had gone out of Joe, that spark of life that told you a man had dreams and was bound and determined to make them happen. Even giving it that six or seven years, in some ways Joe looked like a man ready for the end.

Charles shifted and regretted it as the right side of his head came into contact with the wagon bed. The boards weren't clean and he could feel dirt and straw and everything else that came with it grinding into the wound. A paper cut could kill a man if it wasn't taken care of and any infection halted before it was begun. He couldn't afford to be fevered.

He needed his wits about him if he was going to come out of this alive.

Suddenly, the wagon jolted to a stop.

Charles closed his eyes and feigned unconsciousness. He'd been hit hard enough no one would suspect he was awake yet. He felt a cool breeze with a hint of rain in it waft over him as the tarp covering the wagon came away, bringing welcome relief. It had been stifling before. There was also a hint of sunrise in it, so it seemed they 'd traveled most of the night.

"Help me get him out!" a sharp voice ordered. He thought it was the man who had hit him. He'd caught a glimpse of the one behind Joe, but only a glimpse. He seemed younger. Frightened. Unsure.

Not _this_ one.

Charles bit his tongue as the pair grabbed him and roughly hauled him out of the wagon and pain exploded in his head. He fought giving any reaction and succeeded, even though they dropped him like a feed sack to the ground a few seconds later. He lay there, not knowing what to expect. The kick in the ribs came as no surprise. Nor did the foot shoving him over onto his back.

Whoever this man was, he _hated_ Joe.

"Leave him alone, Dave," the younger man said. "He'll come 'round soon enough."

"Can't be soon enough for me, Clayton. I've been waitin' to settle up with Mister high-and-mighty Joseph Cartwright for twelve _long_ years."

There was a pause, then Clayton asked, "What are you going to do with him?"

"Now don't you pay no nevermind to that, boy," Dave drawled. Charles felt fingers clutch his hair and his head was roughly lifted up. "Soon as Mister Cartwright here comes around we're gonna have us a nice long talk. Why, we used to be friends. I knew him back when he was a skinny good-for-nothing snot-nosed brown-haired kid. We got us a lot of catchin' up to do." The man shoved his head down hard. Charles bit back a moan as he hit the dirt. He heard the blond kneel at his side. "Ain't it a shame, the one who says he'll never let you fall, is the one who ends up pushin' you off your feet in the end." The man leaned in. His breath tickled Charles' ear. "You're a dead man, Cartwright. Only I'm gonna surprise you like you surprised me when you fired me. You ain't gonna know when or how it's gonna come."

Dave stood. "You can just be sure it _is_ gonna come."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The night was the most agonizing she had spent in her entire life. It had been just as terrible when Freddie was ill, but she had had Charles at her side.

This time, she was alone.

She didn't know a wink of sleep. Carrie had been crying for her pa. Poor thing, even though she didn't understand what was happening, she knew something was wrong. Mary had taken charge of her and the two of them had finally fallen asleep together in Carrie's room. Laura kept vigil with her for some time, her little hands wedded together, her lips moving in prayer, before falling asleep on a blanket she had spread for her on the floor. All the time Joe Cartwright sat unmoving before the fire, his handsome and determined face turned toward the door. He had asked for one of Charles' guns and sat with the rifle over his knees, keeping a constant vigil, his head nodding from time to time but almost always jerking up just as quickly to show he was awake. She'd cleaned Joe's wound and wrapped a new bandage around his thigh. He had refused one for his head. His jaw set, nostrils flared and eyes blazing, he'd insisted he was 'all right' and that she should 'stop fussing'. It seemed impossible, but the man might be even _more_ stubborn than Charles.

Charles.

"Oh, dear Lord," she whispered, "Charles, where are you?"

The dawn was breaking outside. She'd considered rousing all the girls and getting into the wagon the minute the light came up and heading for town, but hesitated because she had no idea if the men who had taken Charles might come back. Suppose they discovered their error and came for Joe? Doctor Baker had told her the day before, when they saw him before heading out to the Edwards' place, that he would be coming by today to check his patient at the beginning of his rounds. Hiram should make his appearance any time. Stretching wearily Caroline rose from her chair and, with a glance at Laura who was still sleeping, crossed to the window and looked out.

She heard Joe slowly rise. He came to her side, caught her eye, and then opened and limped out the door.

Caroline followed.

Joe halted at the edge of the porch. He was looking at the barn. When he said nothing, she did.

"Did you want something, Joe?"

The young man flinched. His jaw tightened as he turned to look at her. There were tears in his green eyes, but the look out of them was resolute.

"I'm going after him."

"Joe, no. You can't. You're hurt. Doctor Baker will be here soon and – "

"I can ride a horse. I'll take one of yours."

"You'll kill yourself."

Tears rolled down his cheeks. "Don't you understand? If I don't find Dave Donavan and make him understand that it's _me_ he wants, your husband is dead!"

"Dave Donavan?" Last night Joe had had no idea who the man was. "You remembered?"

He nodded slowly. "It took a while. I had to wait for my head to clear. I got a look at him when..." Joe hesitated. "When he struck Charles."

She'd blanched. "Who is he? Why does he hate you so?"

Joe snorted. Chagrin curled his lips into a sad sort of smile. "We were friends once. My pa said Dave was the 'wrong kind of man'. I wouldn't listen." He ran the back of his hand along his mouth and then shook his head. "Pa was right, of course. I'd hired Dave on as a foreman. All he did was undermine me as boss and drink and carouse with his friends. I fired him."

She sensed there was more. "And?"

Joe faced her. "After I did he used dynamite to blow up the log flume we were building to stop work and then..."

Her hand went to her throat. "Then...?"

"He tried to kill me with his bare hands."

"Dear Lord." What kind of _monster_ was it that had Charles?

"My testimony sent him to prison for five years. Will Poavey was the one who hired Dave to destroy the flume. I'd heard Will took Dave back on when he got out of prison."

"But why would he be here? How would he have known _you_ were here?"

Joe scowled. "I've been considering that. I'm thinkin' Will Poavey saw my name on the list of men attending the meeting in La Crosse. He probably figured we were lookin' at doing business with the railroads and the others who need lumber in the East." He shook his head. "Knowing Will, he hired Dave to rough me up and send Pa a message that he should stay out of it."

"Then you think they'll just...rough Charles up?" There was hope in that.

The look in Joe's eyes dispelled it quickly. "If it was just Will, yeah. Poavey's dirty, but murder is dirtier than he gets. Interfering with a man's business, even roughing him up, might mean prison. Murder means a hangin' tree." He paused. "The trouble is I don't think Dave cares. His hate's all he's got left."

Her emotions were wild. Terror for her husband was at war with a growing affection for this sad young man. She reached out and touched his arm.

"Joe, I don't want to see you killed _either_."

That surprised him. She saw it in the deep familiar green eyes. "Why? I haven't brought you anything but trouble."

Caroline held his gaze. She knew what his answer would be. "Do you believe in Divine providence, Joe?"

She might have slapped him.

When he didn't reply, she went on. "Well, I do. I believe you came into our lives for a reason."

"So your husband could be kidnapped and killed!" he snapped.

She fought her own fear to continue. "God will look out for Charles."

He scoffed. "Like He _looked_ out for my wife? You call letting a pregnant woman be murdered and her body burn with a baby in it 'looking out'?"

She steadied herself and did not turn away from his harsh stare. "Yes. Joe, we live in a fallen world. If God prevented every wrong, it would be _Heaven._ But even when it seems that evil has triumphed, God uses that to the good."

There were tears streaming down his cheeks. "How?" he pleaded. "How? What good can come of a thing like that?"

She moved closer to him. "I don't know. I only trust and believe. Charles and I we...we lost a little boy last year."

"Charles told me."

"It was hard. I...faltered. Charles never did." She drew a breath. "Oh, he was angry. He wrestled with God. But you know, Joe, there is nothing wrong with that."

He spoke through clenched teeth. "My pa always told me you have to accept what God does without question."

"I am sure your father is a wonderful man. After all," she said with a smile, "you _are_ his son. Maybe that's the way he had believe to make it through his own trials. But Joe, just because you question doesn't mean you have lost your faith. I am sure you know the story of Job."

"God took everything away and Job was just fine with it," he spat. "Yeah, I know. I've had it quoted to me a hundred times by preachers and just about everyone else."

"Then they are being like Job's false friends. That's not the point. Job was _not_ 'fine with it'. Job was angry, he was defiant, he was..." She laughed. "A lot like you. In chapter thirteen it says, _'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him: but I will maintain mine own ways before Him'._ Joe, God wept just as deeply as you when Alice and your child died. It was _evil_ men who did it. But He will take that evil and make _you_ a better man for it if you will only ask Him to do so. God loves you _so_ deeply. He weeps for you." Her hand went to his cheek. "Alice weeps for you too. She's waiting for you, Joe, just as," she drew a breath, "Charles will be for me if God decides this is his time."

He was staring at her, the look on his face unreadable, when she heard the sound of buggy wheels coming down the road.

"Hiram," she said, turning toward it. "Thank God!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Lemuel Perkins was a busy man. He stared at the old geezer with snow-white hair and the red-headed boy before him, wondering what sin he'd committed that had landed them in his telegraph office at the end of the day. The old man was pacing, waiting for an answer to the message he had sent to a man named Jacobs in La Crosse, Minnesota, and expecting to get it before their train left at eight o'clock. The young one was following him around like a lost puppy. Lemuel glanced at the clock on the wall above the desk. It was five-thirty and high time for the Rawlings, Wyoming office to close. He had a plump wife and an even plumper apple pie waiting for him at home. It had been a hard day what with all the messages flying right and left about the Indians Wars, Boss Tweed's latest adventure, and the Wyoming cattle boom. Why, there'd hardly been time for that message Mister Cartwright wrote to be sent, let alone a chance for an answer to come through! He'd told the him to go to the train station and tell them he needed a ticket for tomorrow, and then to get a hotel room for the night. That old man, he was quick. Lemuel straightened his tie and swallowed.

For a minute, he'd thought he was going to choke him.

As the clock struck five-thirty-one Ben Cartwright stopped and looked at it. Then he looked at him, as if he could will the telegraphy key to start ticking that instant.

Lemuel let out a low whistle.

Danged, if it didn't!

"Is that for me?" the old man demanded as he came to the desk.

"Give me a minute," Lemuel said, listening and reaching for his pencil. That kid on the other end of the line in La Crosse was quicker on the ticker than a bear running from a bunch of mad honey bees. He had to ask him to repeat the message and that just about sent the old man into an apoplectic fit. Thos black eyes of his went to the red-headed kid.

He felt sorry for that boy.

"Well?" Cartwright roared when he put his pencil down.

"There you are, sir," he said, handing it over. "Though I can't say as it makes much sense."

The white-haired man read it. His shoulders slumped. The boy took his arm, spoke a couple of words, and the two left the room.

Lemuel sat there scratching his head. He reread the message before handing it over.

YOU WERE RIGHT. STOP. DONAVAN. STOP. POAVEY. STOP. STOP CARTWRIGHT. STOP. WHATEVER NECESSARY.

He wondered if this Donavan and whoever Joe was were friends. Maybe they'd missed connections somewhere.

Lemuel caught his coat up from the back of the chair and thought again of the geezer who had looked twenty years older when he walked out that door.

Or maybe _not._

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe listened from inside the barn as Caroline Ingalls' related to Doctor Baker what had happened the night before. It was less than five minutes later that the buggy sped out of the yard at full tilt, headed for Walnut Grove and help. It was three miles to town and three miles back, and it would take the doctor some time to rouse the town this early in the morning and to enlist the aid of the men who populated it. They'd have to gather supplies and ammunition and so much more before they could head out. Most likely it would be at least three, maybe four hours before the search would be underway.

From what he knew of Dave, Charles didn't have that long.

Joe was in the middle of saddling one of the Ingalls's horses when he heard someone come into the barn. He closed his eyes and calmed his temper, thinking it was Caroline coming to lecture him again. But when he turned, it wasn't Charles wife he found.

It was his middle daughter. Laura was standing in the door with a bucket in her hand.

"Ma says..." The little brown-haired girl stopped and swallowed. "Ma says life don't stop cause of trouble and if I don't milk the cow, she's gonna be hurtin'." Laura took a few steps forward. "What are you doing? You ain't leavin', are you?"

He pulled on one of the straps that held the saddle to the plow horse. "I'm going after your pa."

She came right up beside him. "That's what Ma said. She said you're not well enough."

"I'm fine," he snapped.

"Your leg's bleedin'."

He looked down. So it was.

"It's nothing. I'll be all right."

Laura stared at him for a moment and then, without a word walked over to the cow's stall. She sat the bucket on the ground near the stool and then looked back. "I don't want anything to happen to you either, Joe," she said softly.

He leaned his arm on the worn saddle and closed his eyes.

Was there nothing that would make this family accept the fact that – if there _was_ a God – He'd made a _big_ mistake by landing him on their doorstep?

Joe felt Laura's small hand touch his good leg. He looked down into her upturned face. She was crying.

Not for her pa. For _him._

Joe let go of the saddle and slowly slid to the ground, exhausted and willing – with this little one at least – to admit it. Laura knelt beside him and gathered him into her arms. Like her mother, she ran her hand over his head and said in a soft, sincere voice.

"It'll be all right. You'll see. God'll take care of everything."

Joe caught her hand. Kissed it.

And let the tears flow.


	10. Chapter 9

NINE

Three days.

 _Three_ days.

They were _three_ days out from La Crosse and there was absolutely _nothing_ he could do to help his son. Ben's tired eyes strayed to Jamie. The boy was stretched out of the built-in bunk in their state room on the train sound asleep. Exhaustion had finally claimed him. He regretted bringing him now.

Now that he knew just _who_ was behind Joseph's disappearance.

The man he had wired – Daniel Jacobs – was a long time friend and associate who had relocated in Minnesota when the lumber trade there began to grow. Dan was his connection for this meeting and the man who hoped to have him supplant some of the other less than honest contractors in the area, Will Poavey being the chief among them. It had been nearly twelve years since the trouble between Will and Joe over the contract for supplying fir trees to the Sun Mountain Company. Joe had won the bid away from Will and they'd always suspected Poavey had a hand in what happened to the flume Joe'd built, but it was almost beyond belief to think that Will would have approved of Dave Donavan's attempt to take his son's life. At the trial, Poavey hadn't spoken for or against Donavan. He'd just sworn that _he_ was innocent. Yes, the contractor admitted, he played rough, but Will said he would never have sanctioned murder.

He'd believed him.

He was a _fool._

As he and Jamie traveled the endless miles between Virginia City and La Crosse, he'd had time to think. Dave Donavan had been sent to prison, but he'd been released six or seven years back. They'd not heard of him working in Nevada again. When Joe went missing he began to consider the unthinkable. What if Dave was working for Poavey again? What if they knew from the roster that Joe was coming to the meeting?

What if Poavey was dirtier than they believed?

And so he had wired Daniel Jacobs and asked him to check into it. The answer had been that damned telegram.

 _YOU WERE RIGHT. STOP. DONAVAN. STOP. POAVEY. STOP. STOP CARTWRIGHT. STOP. WHATEVER NECESSARY._

Ben shuddered.

Whatever necessary.

The older man walked over to the train window and looked out at the scenery as it flew past. It was a miracle. The time it would have taken him to get to his son by horse or wagon had been cut by months. Still each hour, each minute they flew along at thirty miles an hour was agonizing. Joe had been missing for nearly a week. It broke his heart to wish it, but he did. He prayed Joseph had simply run away. That his youngest was somewhere safe, far away from the machinations of men whose only love was of money.

Whose only aim was revenge.

Sitting down in the seat opposite Jamie, Ben lowered his head. His hands went together and he began to whisper oft repeated words, seeking solace in them as he had so many times before.

" _On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him. He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. But He knoweth the way that I take and when he hath tried me..._

Ben drew in a deep breath and released it as a tear trailed down his cheek.

" _I shall come forth as gold."_

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Where do you think we should look?" Lars Hanson asked. He was still shaking from what he 'd heard.

Hiram Baker shook his head. They were standing in the middle of the mercantile where they'd agreed to meet. He looked at the circle of good men surrounding him – Lars, the Reverend Alden, Isaiah Edwards, Hans Dorfler and more – and still felt despair. Charles had been snatched from his home before midnight. More than eight hours had passed.

He and the men who took him could be anywhere.

"Did this here Joe Cartwright know anythin'?" Isaiah asked, the tension in his voice apparent. Fortunately he'd been able to catch Isaiah before he headed out of town on his run.

"Joe was struck pretty hard on the head," he replied. "Added to his other injuries, he was confused. Couldn't remember much other than a blond man struck Charles and then he and another man took off with him." He paused. "Joe thinks they were looking for him and took Charles by mistake."

"Does he know why?"

Hiram shook his head. "When we get back to Charles' place we can ask him. Joe might remember something by now."

"Do we have any idea which way to go?" another man asked.

"There are tracks. I saw them." He eyed the sky. "If we get moving before the rain starts we can follow them." The sky had clouded up while he was on his way into town. It looked like a storm in the west. No telling how long it would be before it hit. "From the look of it, they had a wagon and were headed into the hills."

They were waiting on Nels Oleson to return from his storeroom. Nels was gathering up some last minute supplies. He'd come from the Ingalls without much in the way of painkillers. He had some in his bag but he wanted to be prepared for the worst. Nels was bringing whiskey.

Hiram Baker ran a hand over his eyes, remembering Caroline's face. That woman was strong, but there was only so much a person could take. What with minding her three girls in a time of crisis she'd have had little time to speculate, but that wouldn't stop her worrying. He'd asked Isaiah to bring Grace along so she could go out and be with Caroline. Grace was outside in the wagon. Their children were upstairs with Willie and Nellie. Alicia and Karl were going to stay at the Olesons.

The blond man felt a hand rest on his shoulder. He looked up to find the Reverend Alden. The older man eyed him and then said softly, "Be assured, Hiram. God _is_ in control."

The doctor snorted. "You don't need to tell me, reverend. If I didn't believe that I'd hang up my shingle."

"Charles is a man after God's heart. We must pray He sees him through."

Prayer was like medicine in a way. He knew it could bring about the results he wanted, but every time he administered a dose, he feared it would do nothing until he saw that it did.

Hiram nodded.

The reverend turned then to the other men and said, "Gentlemen, before we begin, let us invite the Lord into our venture."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dave Donavan stared at the sky. There was a storm coming and it was about to break. He cursed, spat, and then turned to look at his prisoner. He _should_ have been a happy man. He wasn't, and he didn't know _why_. Everything he had dreamed of for the five long years of his confinement was within his grasp, but still, it wasn't enough. He could snuff Cartwright's life right now with no more effort than pinching out a candle, but for some reason, all he thought would happen if he did was that he'd get burned. Those years he'd lost in prison were gone and killing the man would do nothing to bring them back. Oh, he'd get a good deal of pleasure out of it, but there had to be something _more._

Dave turned and looked at the brown-haired man where he hung suspended from the ropes that bound him to a tree. He'd let him lay for an hour or so on the ground and then decided he was play-acting. The point of a knife jabbed in Cartwright's hand where it lay had brought him around quick. The blond man's lip curled with an unpleasant sneer. He'd made a right good amount of noise too; howling to wake the dead.

Taking Joe by the collar he'd lifted him from the ground, removed his gag, and struck him in the face. One thing he should have remembered was never to underestimate Joe Cartwright. The skinny little kid he'd almost bested had taken on weight and was well-muscled. Joe'd staggered to the left, like he couldn't get his footing, and then barreled into him, knocking him to the ground. Dave's sneer turned to a scowl. If it hadn't been for Clayton, Joe might have escaped. Clay'd come over and used the butt of his rifle to drive him to the ground. Then the two of them had lifted him up and placed him against the tree and trussed him like a rogue heifer.

Since then he'd been ruminating on what to do.

"Dave, don't you think we should get movin'?" Clayton was looking at the sky. "Someone's bound to come lookin' for him."

He eyed the younger man he traveled with, hearing the 'scare' in his voice.

"You turnin' yellow, Clay?" he jibed.

Clayton scowled. "Poavey said to send a _message_ to his pa. You've sent it. Look at him! Now, let's go before the storm hits."

Clay was right in some ways. Joe _had_ made an easy target, all tied up like that. Dave looked at his raw knuckles and smiled 'cause Cartwright's blood painted them.

"It'll take those towns folks at least four hours to get going, probably more," he replied, "and that's once they know. They couldn't have started out any sooner than eight or nine this morning." Dave looked up. Even with the sun hiding behind the advancing clouds, he could see where it was located. "Must be about noon. We got time."

"Are you going to take him with us?"

Poor stupid kid. He still didn't get it. "Sure. We'll take him and let him go somewhere south of here. That make you feel better?"

Clayton visibly relaxed. "It sure does, Dave. I thought..."

"What? That I was gonna kill him? Nah." He crossed over to the other man and put an arm around his shoulder. "'Course now, if I change my mind..." His grip tightened like a noose as his tone grew in menace. "Now, you ain't gonna try to stop me, are you?"

Clayton shook his head. "No."

Dave sneered. "Good kid," he said as he ruffled the boy's thick black hair. Then he turned and walked toward the man he hated more than life. He'd decided. They'd leave in an hour.

By then, Joe Cartwright would be dead.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"He's gone, Ma," Laura said as she rushed into the house trailing milk behind her. "Joe's gone!"

Her mother took the bucket and put it down. Then she dropped to her knees beside her. "Calm down, Laura," she said as she took hold of the child's arms. "Tell me."

Laura felt just awful. She'd been sitting there with him, crying in the barn, when all of a sudden Joe stood up and went back to cinching the saddle on pa's horse.

"His leg was bleedin', Ma, and he didn't even care. He climbed up on that horse and used his good leg to get it going and rode ride out of the yard."

The older woman looked toward the door. Laura did too. Big clouds were rolling in and it looked like a storm was about to let loose.

"Which way did he go?"

"He was lookin' down, followin' some kind of tracks." She shook her head as tears entered her eyes. "I should've stopped him, Ma. Joe ain't well enough to go."

Her mother rose and walked outside. Laura followed her. Together they stood listening to the rising wind. It was only a moment later that Mary joined them.

"Where's your sister?" Ma asked.

"Sleeping." She hesitated. "She cried herself to sleep wantin' pa."

Laura watched her mother extend her arm and draw her older sister in. "The men of the town are out looking for your father. And now, so is Joe." She watched the older woman's jaw grow tight. When Ma did that, she was fighting tears. "There's nothing we can do but pray."

They stood there together, silent for some time, until Mary asked, all quiet-like. "How come the women always have to stay behind and wait, Ma? How come we can't be out there looking?"

Her mother struggled with the question. "We could," she said finally, "but as much as we want to, we wouldn't have the physical strength to keep up. In the end, we would only slow the men down."

"But aren't men and women equal?" her sister asked.

"Yes, Mary. Equal, but _different_. A woman's strength lies not in muscle, but in patience and perseverance, in faith and fortitude. She's strong in ways _no_ man is strong." Her mother brushed Mary's hair with her fingers. "Together, men and women are a perfect complement."

Mary fell silent. After a minute she nodded and then, as the first of the rain fell, said softly, "I'd still like to be out there searching for pa."

A tear escaped her mother's eye.

"Me too, Mary. Me too."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe couldn't help but think of his big good-hearted brother as he knelt on the ground searching for clues as to the direction Charles' kidnappers had taken. Hoss had been the best tracker in the family. They'd all known it and had deferred to him whenever the need arose. His middle brother had done his best to pass his skills on to him, but he had always been too impatient – too imprecise – to make a good tracker. He was trying to slow down now, to pay attention.

A good man's life hung in the balance.

As he crouched there Joe watched his blood mingle with the rain and run into the mud. His leg was bleeding again, but he ignored it. He'd had worse injuries before and kept going. He had a mild headache from the blow he'd taken to the head, but otherwise was okay. He needed to _be_ 'okay'. He was going to have to take Dave Donavan by surprise if he had any hope of surviving. Donavan was bigger than him. He'd fought him before. It was sheer cussedness that had allowed him to win that time. Joe stood up and pressed his fist into his thigh, massaging the aching muscle above the wound. He scowled at the pain. He was older now and, though he was in good shape, it could have been better. He'd let himself go these last two years.

Sitting and thinking and drinking made a man soft in more ways than one.

Joe returned to his mount. Standing there, he placed his hand on the saddle that ringed Charles Ingalls' plow horse and raised his face into the rain. Thinking of his conversation the night before with Caroline Ingalls, he laughed. If Charles pretty wife had been a man, he would have decked her for what she said to him. But she wasn't a man. She was a woman. And a mother.

He'd never had a mother.

Oh, his had lived until he was five, but she was nothing more than a wish and a dream and someone else's memory. He recalled how both Hoss and Adam had said she'd handle them so different from Pa, making them think and come to it themselves instead of just telling them what to do. Charles Ingalls tough words were with him still. In a way, Ingalls reminded him of his pa. There was a strength there he could only _hope_ to attain. A rock bottom surety.

A deep and unyielding faith that nothing could undermine.

Just like his pa's, Ingalls' faith was something he could never hope to live up to. It stood before him, a as a mountain he simply could not climb. As he fought verbally and physically with the older man, everything he should be and believe and didn't and wasn't had pressed down on him like a ten ton weight of stone.

Into that guilt and sense of failure had come a still, small, voice. A _woman's_ voice. Something he had sorely lacked over the years.

 _Joe, God wept just as deeply when Alice and your child died. God loves you so deeply. He weeps for you._

 _Alice weeps for you too_.

Joe chuckled at his own stupidity. He'd never thought of it _that_ way. About how Alice was looking down from Heaven, shaking her head and grieving for _him._ His lips twitched as tears ran down his filthy cheeks. All of it – the fire, Alice's death...the baby...and even the torture he'd lived through at Bill Tanner's hands – all of it had been to make him stronger. To make him fit for Heaven.

To make him fit to take _her_ hand _._

Joe wiped his face with the back of his glove, though the gesture was futile, and looked up at his saddle. Mounting that horse again was gonna be like climbing yet another mountain. Still, he had to do it. He was gonna save Charles Ingalls today if it killed him.

It probably _would_ kill him.

Joe looked up and smiled the first genuine smile he had in two long years.

"I'll see you soon, sweetheart," he whispered.

"And this time, it will be _forever_."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Charles steeled himself. Dave Donavan was approaching with murder in his eyes and a knife in his hand. The brown-haired man swallowed over nausea to lift his head and face him. Over the last few hours Donavan had come upon him unawares and struck him numerous times until his head was ringing and he the world was spinning out of control. He could have, at any time, told the bully that he was mistaken; that he _wasn't_ Joe Cartwright and the man was a fool to think he was. But something had told him to keep quiet – that still small voice inside that was the answer to prayer. He knew for a certainty that if Donavan discovered he was _not_ Joe, he would kill him outright. The only thing keeping him alive was the evil man's desire to torture Joe and prolong his death.

Hanging there, dripping blood, Charles thought of his wife and children. They'd talked about it before and he'd told Caroline he wanted her to remarry if something should happen to him. The girls would need a good man to look after them and his beautiful wife would need one too. She'd told him 'no'. He'd insisted 'yes'.

In the end, she cried and nodded against his chest.

Life was a journey and what you believed made it what it was. If you thought there was no plan to it – that everything was random and had no purpose – well, then you died before the last breath left you. Charles raised his face into the cleansing rain. On the other hand, if you believed that God was sovereign and that your life was in His hands, well, that made you even more _alive._ Oh, it didn't stop a man worrying and wondering and asking why when the hard times came, but it let you know that the hard times had a reason and a purpose and God was gonna use them _and_ you to work miracles.

Even it meant that miracle was your death.

Dave Donavan stopped before him. He was running his fingers up and down the bone handle of the hunting knife.

"You ready, Cartwright?"

Yes, he was ready. But if he was going to die, it would be under his own name.

"You got it wrong," he managed to say even though his lips were swollen from the beatings.

"What"? Dave sneered. "You ain't gonna die?" He pressed the edge of the blade into his throat. " _This_ says otherwise."

"No. I know I'm gonna die," he said, his voice eerily calm. " _You_ got it wrong. I ain't Joe Cartwright."

Donavan's eyes narrowed. "What?"

Charles licked his bloody lips, frowning at the taste of iron. "I ain't Joe Cartwright. You've got yourself the wrong man."

The blond man caught his hair in his fingers and drove his head back against the tree. "You're lyin'! I'd know Joe Cartwright anywhere."

"Just so happens we look alike. Don't know why."

The blade cut in more. "It ain't possible."

"Look at me! Look at the lines in my face. I'm almost forty. Joe ain't more than thirty-one."

Donavan was shaking his head. "No. It's not possible."

Charles smiled in spite of the pain it brought him. "You've been blind, Donavan. You missed him. He was there that night. Your boy there," he indicated Clayton who was holding the horses' reins and watching from a distance, "he knocked Joe out and you left him there, laying on the ground outside my barn. That was _him_ with the silver hair."

The man's face was drawn. He could see the truth dawning in those soulless eyes.

"No. No!" Dave shouted. "You would have said somethin'. Somethin' to save your _life!_ You're just tryin' to mess with my head. Make me think you're someone else so I won't kill you!"

"If I'd of said somethin', I'd _be_ dead," Charles countered quietly.

"You're still dead!" Donavan cried as he put strength behind the knife.

Suddenly, a voice came out of nowhere.

"Dave. It's me you want, not him. Let the man go."

Charles looked up. A bedraggled figure was limping out of the trees. He had a rifle in his hands and it was pointed at Clayton, who had dropped what he was doing and had his hands in the air.

It was Joe.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hiram Baker shook his head and sighed. The best tracker among them, and that wasn't saying much, was Isaiah Edwards. The former mountain man was crouching on the ground, looking for signs as the pounding rain carried any and all of them away. They'd followed both the outlaws and the tracks of Charles' plow horse south for about an hour before the rain had started falling in earnest.

Now, they didn't know which way to go.

"I say we continue east," Isaiah said as he rose. "There's nothing to indicate they turned any other direction."

"And nothing to indicate they didn't," Hans Dorfler sighed.

"I've been thinkin', I mean..." Isaiah paused. "If they just meant to kill Charles, then just about anywhere off the track would do. Wouldn't be no reason to go toward a town. Least ways not while he was still alive." He stopped and looked sick.

" _Is_ still alive."

They all felt it. A sense of urgency, as if time was running out.

"Do you think those two have discovered Charles isn't Joe?" Nels asked as he came alongside Isaiah.

It weighed on them all. The possibility that this Dave Donavan would find he'd made a mistake There would be no reason to keep Charles alive if he did.

"Let's hope not," Hiram breathed.

Lars had been standing, looking south. He turned to look at them. "It is doing us no good standing here. I say _ve_ move on."

Isaiah nodded. "I agree. The sooner we find what we're gonna find, the sooner we know what we got to deal with."

The former mountain man and Charles were close. The pain in Isaiah's eyes was almost unbearable to see. Hiram reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Wise words, my friend. Let's go."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe limped out of the trees, Charles' rifle in his hand. "Let him alone, Dave. It's me you want."

He'd been shocked when he'd first saw Charles. The older man was tied to a tree. His face was a mass of bruises and blood. Still, in spite of the obvious abuse he had endured, he was defiant. Charles was looking Dave right in the eye.

While Dave held a knife to his throat.

"Why should I?" the blond man yelled. "Why shouldn't I kill him right now? He made a fool out of me!"

Joe limped in closer. His leg wound was pounding and he could feel fever licking at the edge of his senses. "You don't need anybody to do that for you, Dave. You've always been good at doin' that yourself."

The blond man pressed the knife into Charles' flesh, forcing him to lift his head. Blood dripped from the blade. "I can finish him quick," he sneered. "Then it's your turn, Joe."

"I thought you were brave, but I guess you're a coward. Threatening a man who's trussed up is the _act_ of a coward. You're a coward _and_ a failure, Dave. You can't stand looking at me and bein' reminded that you wasted every single chance you ever had to make a decent living and be a decent man." Joe moved past Clayton, ignoring the boy who took one look at him and turned and ran. He was deliberately goading the other man, trying to draw him away from Charles. "I gave you a chance, Dave. Ended up I was wrong. You weren't even worth the tryin'."

"Joe..." Charles warned.

He shot him a look and shook his head. _This is my fight, not yours._

Charles jaw tightened. His eyes said it all.

Then he nodded.

Joe raised the rifle. "Get away from him, Dave."

The blond chortled. "Like hell, I will. You'll just shoot me."

"Yeah, you're right. I will _just_ shoot you."

The words were bitter even to his own ears.

"Looks like you and me got us an impasse. I got him," Dave's blue eyes narrowed. "I want you."

He was right. Dave was too close to Charles. He could slit his throat before he could pull the trigger. There was only one way to end this.

Joe put the rifle down.

Scorn lifted Dave's lips and curled them in a vicious smile. "Now, you're bein' right smart, Joe. No need for this fine man to die 'cause you're too much of a coward to fight me man to man." His old friend stepped away from Charles and faced him. "I'll let you come at me," he said, bending and anchoring the knife in the ground beside him. Nodding toward his pants' leg, which was wet with blood, he added, "Seein' as how you have a handicap."

' _Alice',_ Joe thought, _'be ready. Here I come.'_

And then he charged.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The rain was pounding in front of their home, driving into the earth and creating tiny channels as it ran along the ground. The scent of rain was something Caroline welcomed, knowing it meant life and new growth. There was nothing she loved more than laying in Charles' arms, listening to it pound on their roof. The sound was calming and invigorating at the same time. But not today. Not _this_ afternoon.

Today it was _terrifying._

Laura and Mary were inside, supposedly working on their lessons. She didn't know what else to do. If she stopped their normal routine, all any of them would have to do would be worry. And yet, at the same time, pretending everything was normal was almost more than she could manage. The man she loved – the man who was her _world_ – was out there, in the hands of a lunatic.

He could be...dead.

Caroline remembered the words she had spoken so recently to Joe. They had been so high-minded, so _noble._

 _Alice weeps for you too. She's waiting for you, Joe, just as Charles will be for me if God decides this is his time._

The blonde woman sucked in air as if she was drowning. She closed her eyes and fell to her knees there on the stoop with the wind whipping her hair and the rain striking her face. First she asked for forgiveness. The words had come so easily the night before. She prayed they were of God and something Joe needed to hear. She had no idea what pain Joe Cartwright felt. Just the idea that Charles might be...gone...was enough to drive her to distraction. What if her husband had died in a fire as Alice Cartwright had – been _murdered_ – and one of her babies along with him? She'd never touched liquor in her life and she was sure she'd never seek solace there, but she thought she understood why Joe did. The grief would be unbearable.

Would _she_ be able to stop grieving if everything she had ever loved and hoped for was gone?

Caroline sobbed and lowered her head and for a moment simply 'was'. She spread her hands before her, entreating God for her husband's life and for the life of their new friend, for strength for her children, hope for herself, and simply for the will to go on.

In the silence, in the stillness, she was surprised by the touch of a hand on her shoulder. She was flooded with warmth, in spite of the chilling rain. The touch moved to her cheek, and then it rode the wind away leaving her with three words.

 _He'll come home._

Caroline stood and looked around. It had been a woman's voice, soft and sweet. "Alice?" she asked, but there was no answer. "Who'll come home?"

Charles, or Joe?

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe was staggering. But so was Donavan. The rain was pounding them both, driving their hair into their eyes and turning the ground beneath their boots to mud. For the first few minutes Charles had shouted, warning him of what Dave was doing and giving him an upper hand. That had lasted until the blond man had swung around with his pistol in his hand and aimed for the other man. He'd jumped him but the shot had gone off. Charles slumped, motionless. He had no idea if the farmer was alive or dead, only that the bullet must have hit him somewhere since he hadn't said another word.

Blood was streaming from his leg wound, weakening him. Anger alone kept him on his feet – anger at this man who in his selfishness was willing to destroy a good man like Charles Ingalls who had done him no wrong. It wasn't for himself anymore. He knew what kind of a man he was and what kind Dave was. He even pitied his old friend in a way. Dave was so caught up in being the man on top, the one who dominated everyone and everything around him, that he couldn't see straight. It was why Dave wanted to take him down. It wasn't about Poavey or the contract, him firing him, or even those five years he'd spent in prison. It was about that fight.

The one Dave lost.

Skinny Little Joe Cartwright, Ben's darling boy, the pampered son of a rich man, had taken him down and he couldn't live with it.

Dave was aiming the pistol at him now.

"Why don't you go ahead and shoot me," Joe goaded him. "You know you can't win without cheating."

The other man's jaw was tight. His eyes were slits. "You shut up! Just _shut up_ , Joe!"

"Why? 'Cause I'm telling the truth? Because you're nothing but a little man who hides behind a gun?"

His only hope of living was to fight Dave man to man. One shot from that pistol and he was done.

"Why, Cartwright? Why?"

"Why what?" he frowned.

"Why do some men have everythin' and some men have nothin'? It ain't fair."

Joe's gaze went to Charles. "Money ain't everythin', Dave. That man you have tied to that tree, he doesn't have money, but he has everything."

Dave snorted. "He ain't got anythin' now. You know, you killed him Cartwright. It's your fault."

Joe had been stalling for time, gathering strength. Dave wasn't about to lower the gun and he couldn't just stand there in the rain waiting for Donavan to make his mind up while Charles Ingalls bled to death. He'd watched the blond man closely for the last few minutes, looking for an opportunity to take him, but there just wasn't anything he could think of to _do_.

Finally, desperate, chewing on the words and spitting them out like they were wormwood, Joe asked for help.

"God, _please._ Save this man."

Almost as if in answer there was a crack of thunder. Dave started and looked up.

The gun went off as Joe slammed into him.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Did you hear that?"

Isaiah Edwards' looked at Lars Hanson. "Sure did. It came from over there." He pointed toward a clump of trees to the left. "There's a clearing a little ways in there, near a stream and at the bottom of some hills."

"I remember it," Hans said. "There's an abandoned shack nearby."

"Makes sense," Lars nodded, pulling at his beard. "Those bad men probably used it as a hiding place."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Nels asked.

Isaiah pursed his lips. They all _knew_ what they were waiting for – they were farmers and trappers and store-keeps and blacksmiths. Men bred to peace and not to violence. Men who built and did not tear down.

None of them had ever killed a man.

It was Isaiah who spoke first. He spit out a chaw of tobacco and then tightened his jaw. "Charles needs us," was all he said.

It was enough.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Joe lay on top of Dave. The gun was still smoking in Donavan's hand. At the last minute he'd managed to catch him by the collar and swing the blond man around so that the bullet went wild. Then, with a strength he had not known he possessed, he'd had struck the other man so hard he lost consciousness.

Which was what he was about to do.

Pressing off the ground with his hands, Joe rose shakily to his feet. He stumbled over to where Charles hung suspended from the tree and pressed his hand to his chest. The other man moaned.

Thank God! He was alive.

Faltering, barely on his feet, Joe hung on to consciousness while he searched Charles' form to find where the bullet had taken him. On the right side of his shirt, his hand came away covered in blood. He hoped it was a flesh wound. They could bleed a lot.

Charles groaned.

"Don't try to talk," Joe said "Save your strength."

The older man didn't listen. He moaned again and struggled to speak. "Joe...behind you. ...Donavan."

Joe swung around. Dave Donavan was on his feet and lifting the rifle he'd abandoned. With an instinct long forgotten Joe dove, rolled, came up with the knife in his hand and threw it all in one motion. It flew straight as an arrow through the air not through any skill of his own.

It went on a wing and a prayer.

Dave cried out as the blade imbedded itself in his heart. He looked down, surprised, and then pitched forward and lay silent.

Joe glanced at Charles, who was motionless again.

And did the same.


	11. Chapter 10

TEN

Isaiah would never forget the sight that greeted him when he broke through the trees ahead of the other men. His mouth dry, his heart poundin', he had shouted, "Here! Over here!, before makin' his way across the scene of violence and death. The blond man Nels had described was layin' face down in the grass, a hole blown clear through him. He bent to check for a pulse in passin'. Finding nothin' Isaiah moved on, torn between checkin' the gray-haired man layin' in the grass and his best friend whose bound form was danglin' motionless from a tree.

His friend won out.

The rain was still fallin' though the storm had passed. Isaiah looked down as he approached and watched as the blood running down Charles' still frame mingled with the mud at his feet. His friend had been beaten for sure. Considerin' all he'd heard about the dead man, that didn't come as a surprise. But the wounds on his face were already closin' and the blood congealed.

The blood in the water was fresh.

Gently, the grizzled man took hold of Charles' face and called him.

"Charles. Charles, can you hear me? It's Isaiah."

For a moment, there was nothing. Then Charles stirred. He moaned and then fell silent again. Isaiah looked back the way he'd come. He wanted to get him off that damned tree, but he couldn't do it without help.

Where were the others?

He tried again. "Charles?"

The brown-haired man groaned again and then winced. "Where's the...train?" he asked.

"That hit ya?" Isaiah sighed with relief. "Gone on to Wisconsin."

"Oh..."

"Charles, I need ya to look at me. You hear me?"

His eyelids fluttered open and he looked up.

"Seems there's somethin' wrong with you I cain't find," the mountain man said. "You know what it is?"

The injured man licked his lips. "Shot...in...side."

"Lord, Charles," Isaiah said, gingerly probin' for the wound. When he found it, he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd lifted his friend's bloody shirt to find that the bullet had cut a channel through his flesh, but it hadn't penetrated. Whistling he said, "You sure must hold a place in God's heart, Charles. That was close."

The bound man moved restlessly. He raised his head as if tryin' to look past him. "Joe...?" Charles asked.

He glanced at the silver-haired man where he lay on the ground.

"Ain't checked him yet."

"Let me...be. Check...Joe..."

He hated to do it, but 'til the other men appeared he'd didn't dare chance cuttin' Charles loose and havin' him fall to the ground. Leavin' his friend danglin', he crossed to where the grey-haired man lay face-up in the grass. This was the first time he'd seen Joe Cartwright in the flesh. It was true what the others said.

He and Charles were dead-ringers.

Wincing at his choice of words, Isaiah placed a hand on Joe's chest and felt his heart beat.

"He's alive!" he called even as he heard the sound of men moving off to his right. A second later Lars and Nels broke through the trees. They halted, just as shocked by the scene as he'd been. "What took you so long?" he shouted. "Get over there and cut Charles down from that tree!"

Nels paused beside him. "Cartwright?"

"Livin'. That's about all I can say for now." He looked up. "What'd you, take time to go fishin'?"

He saw Nels glance at Lars. The older man was at Charles' side, talking to him in low tones. "We ran into that young man who traveled with Donavan. I thought it best to take him into custody."

Isaiah nodded. "Sound thinkin' there."

Nels stared at Joe for a heartbeat and then said, "I'll go help Lars."

The mountain man followed him with his gaze and watched as they cut the ropes. Hans had appeared as well, with Doctor Baker followin' close behind. The pair were racing over to where Nels was lowering Charles to the ground. Satisfied that his friend was in good hands, Isaiah turned back to the man lyin' beside him.

"Cartwright," he said gently shakin' him. "Joe Cartwright!"

Joe looked to be in bad shape. He was fevered. His color was gray as day old porridge and the ground was runnin' red under his left leg.

Still, somehow, he managed to open his eyes.

"Charles.." was the first thing he said.

"He's alive." _Thanks to you, it looks like,_ he added in a thought.

"Dave?"

Must be the blond man. "Dead."

Joe moaned. "Didn't want...to...kill him. No...choice."

He glanced at Charles. Doc Baker had his friend's shirt open and was pressing a cloth to the bullet wound. "You saved Charles' life, didn't you?"

"Better man...than...me..."

Isaiah checked his pulse and then rocked back on his heels. Joe was out again. As he sat there, tryin' to figure out just what had happened, Doc Baker dropped to the ground beside him and placed two fingers against Joe Cartwright's throat.

He looked over to where Nels and Lars were still bendin' over his friend.

"How's Charles?" Isaiah asked.

The Doc's jaw was tight. He was working his way through Cartwright's hair, checking to see what had matted it with blood.

"Holding his own for the moment." The blond man glanced at him. "I won't lie, Isaiah. It's touch and go for both these men. Both are exhausted and soaked through. Even if the wounds aren't all that bad, it's infectivity I'm worried about." The doctor switched from Joe's head to his leg. "I sent Hans for that wagon we saw a ways back. We need to get them to Charles' place as quickly as we can."

Isaiah frowned. "You think one of us should ride back first – maybe let Caroline know what to expect?"

The blond man glanced in Charles' direction and then down at Joe.

"I think, Isaiah, that would be very wise."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Her heart skipped a beat when she heard a rap at the door. Caroline turned to her friend Grace, who was feeding Carrie.

"You go," Grace said softly. "I'll keep things here."

She'd sent Mary and Laura out to do their evening chores an hour or so back and told them to take Jack. She had no idea where they were. If they were in the yard and the news was bad...

"Caroline?" Grace was watching her closely. "Are you all right?"

No, she wasn't, but she also wasn't going to admit it.

"I'll see who it is," she said with a tight smile.

The blonde woman opened the door to find Isaiah on the stoop. He had his hat in his hands and his fingers were ringing it like they always did when he was anxious or unsure of himself.

He grimaced and then said, "Caroline."

"Do you have news?"

The mountain man nodded, but instead of telling her what it was, he asked, "Where's the girls?"

Caroline's heart was beating fast. "Carrie's inside with Grace. Mary and Laura are doing chores. Why?" _What aren't you telling me?_ she thought. "Has something happened to Charles?"

"He's hurt, Caroline. Hurt pretty bad," the grizzled man admitted. "The Doc will be bringin' him and that Cartwright feller here shortly. We thought..." He paused. "Well, we thought maybe you'd want some time to prepare – you know, what with _two_ sick men needin' tended."

 _And_ the girls to consider.

"Thank you, Isaiah. Do you need to go back right away, or can you – "

"I'm here for good," he answered. "Tell me what you need me to do."

She thought a moment. Poor Carrie. Back to the loft for her! "We'll put Joe in Carrie's bedroom. We can make a pallet on the floor. Charles can rest in our room."

No matter what, she wanted him there. It had been _so_ long.

Isaiah returned his hat to his head. "Yes, ma'am," he said and then moved past her into the house to begin.

As Caroline turned away from the door, she heard the sound of running footsteps. She looked out toward the road and saw Mary and Laura flying down the path to the house.

They must have seen Isaiah arrive.

A minute later they skidded to a halt before her, breathing hard, their eyes wide with the question that had been plaguing them all.

"They found your pa," she said, stepping off the stoop and going to stand by them. "And Joe."

"Are they here, Ma?" Laura asked, breathless.

"Not yet. Isaiah's here. He said they'll be arriving anytime soon."

"Is Pa okay?" Mary asked, seeming to sense there was more she wasn't telling them. Her oldest knew her too well.

Caroline drew a breath. "No. He's hurt. So it Joe."

She saw it hit them. This wasn't over.

Laura swallowed hard. "How bad, Ma? How bad is Pa?"

She remembered the look in Isaiah's eyes. "I don't know, but I think it's bad."

"Is he gonna live?" Mary asked, her voice small and pitiful.

Caroline touched the top of each of their heads. "We'll do everything we can, for your Pa _and_ Joe, but you know in the end its in the Lord's hands not ours."

She heard a sound and turned around to find Carrie toddling out the door. Grace was close behind her. The other woman's gaze went to the girls. "Isaiah suggested I take the girls to our house," she said quietly.

"Ma, no!" they both protested.

"You're going to need us," Mary said.

"Remember, Joe's hurt too," Laura added.

It was true.

"We can send the girls on and I can stay," Grace suggested.

Caroline closed her eyes. If she sent them away, she would spare them whatever was coming. She could clean their father up and hopefully minimize their trauma. But at the same time, should Charles...die...without them ever seeing him...

With tears in her eyes, she turned to Grace and said softly, "It's their right to stay. But if you'll take Carrie with you, I'd appreciate it." Dropping to her knees she caught the little girl in her arms and asked her, "Would you like to go play with Karl and Alyssa?"

Carrie looked around, confused, and then nodded.

"Come here, sweetheart," Grace said, taking her. "Let's get your coat and hat and then you can go play with them."

Caroline caught her arm. "Thank you, Grace."

The other woman's eyes were moist. "You send word by Isaiah if there's anything else I can do."

She nodded and then turned back to her children. "We need to get things ready. Mary, go get those old petticoats of yours out of the chest, you know, the ones I was saving for Carrie?" As her eldest nodded, she added, "Get the scissors and cut them into strips. Laura, you can help me get the bed ready for your pa. Isaiah's working on a place for Joe."

As they entered the house, her eyes returned to the road.

How long? How _long_ before she would see him again?

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hiram Baker was sitting in the back of the wagon between the two wounded men. He'd managed to staunch the blood flow from the wound to Charles' side. He was having less luck doing so with Joe Cartwright's leg. It seemed when he fell the silver-haired man tore something open and fresh blood was soaking through the bandages every few minutes. He needed to get him into a clean sterile space where he could sew up the bleeders.

The back of this wagon filled with dirt and decay certainly wasn't it.

So far Charles was without fever. Joe's skin was hot to the touch – too hot. Obviously he should never have left the Ingalls' house to go after Charles. He wasn't healed enough from the bear attack. Of course, if Joe hadn't, he wouldn't be thinking about how to pull Charles through.

He'd be helping to dig him a grave.

"How are they doing?" Lars tossed the question back over his shoulder. He was driving the wagon with the two men in it while the others followed behind with the horses.

"Holding their own," he replied. There really wasn't much more to say. There would be days ahead of fighting down infection for both. While Charles' side had only been creased by the bullet and the wound was relatively free of contamination, the cut on his head was another matter entirely. It was tinged with red and fiery hot. "Can't expect much more right now."

" _Ja_ ," Lars said. "But one can always hope."

Hope. It was the one thing he packed in his medical kit that he never ran out of.

Hiram looked up. He recognized the road. They were nearing the bend where the Ingalls' home would come into sight.

He hoped to God Isaiah had Caroline and the girls prepared.

Laura'd finished helping her ma put fresh linens on the bed. She'd gone outside to fetch some water to fill the pitchers in the rooms when she heard the wagon coming. She should have gone to get her ma but fear rooted her to the spot. Pa wasn't sitting in it. Neither was Joe.

They had to be laying in the wagon bed.

Mister Hanson was driving and when he saw her, he pulled the team to a halt. Like she was walking in a dream, Laura started straight for it. When he saw her, Doctor Baker hopped out of the back and met her halfway.

"Where's you ma?" he asked as he took her by the shoulders.

"Inside," she answered woodenly, her eyes on the wagon. "Where's Pa?"

"We've got him, and Joe Cartwright." He knelt and looked her in the eye. "Did your ma let you stay?"

"Yes, sir."

He nodded. "I'm sure she can use your help. Now, Laura, I want you to go inside and get your mother."

"But I want to see Pa!" she protested.

"In time." He placed a hand on her cheek. "In good time."

In the end she didn't have to go inside. By the time she'd made it to the door her mother and sister were coming out. Ma wiped her hands on her apron as she stepped off the stoop and came to them. She was looking at the wagon too.

"Charles?"

"Bad off," he admitted, "but not as bad as Cartwright. I got the bleeding stopped."

Her mother paled. "Bleeding?" she squeaked.

Doctor Baker put a hand on Ma's shoulder. "He was shot, but it was just a graze," he added quickly. "The bullet didn't penetrate. It's the cut on his head I'm worried about."

Ma's eyes went to her and then back to the Doc. "What happened?"

The blond man drew in a long breath and let it out with a shake of his head. "That Donavan was a mean one. Seems he hated Joe Cartwright with a passion."

"And he thought Charles _was_ Joe..."

"Charles has been beaten severely, Caroline." He looked at Mary and then at Laura before returning his gaze to her mother. "It's not pretty."

Laura stared at her ma and then at the wagon again. She'd seen a few fights in her time at school. Boys coming in with split lips and black eyes. Ma had told her Pa had been quite a scrapper before they married. She thought about him with a split lip and black eye. It seemed kind of funny, but she knew it wasn't. Anyhow, this sounded like it was a lot worse than that.

Her mother eyed her and then her sister. "You two stay here. That's an order, understand?"

They both nodded. "Yes, Ma'am."

She watched as her mother walked away and saw the doctor give her a hand up into the wagon. She knew Ma probably tried not to, but she made a strangled little sound when she looked down, before falling to her knees and reaching out.

Laura was shivering. She felt hot and cold all at one and the same time. Mary was holding her hand. Her sister didn't say anything but tears were streaming down her face like she knew something she hadn't shared. As they stood there, she saw her ma turn to the other side of the wagon. She reached out again and she saw that ma was holding someone's hand.

She'd just about had it with standing still when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"How ya doin', Half-pint?"

She sniffed. "I don't know Mister Edwards."

Her voice was small too.

He knelt and turned her around to face him. "You know, Half-pint, a person can take an awful lickin' and still come out all right, though you sure cain't tell it by lookin' at this old mug." He pulled a face and winked. "But then I wasn't as pretty as your Pa to begin with. Your Pa's pulled me out of some right bad messes and I'm still standin'."

"Was that when you were drinkin'?" she asked.

He nodded solemnly. "Sure was. Got myself beat from one end to the other. God made man a miracle. He can take a lot of punishment. Takes time to mend, but it happens."

She glanced at Mary who had taken one step closer to the wagon. "Does Pa look real bad?"

"It's gonna scare you. There's a lot of blood. But you pay no nevermind to it, you hear? What caused it's mended, but your Pa and his clothes is covered in it."

She shivered and then nodded. "How's Joe?"

"'Bout the same. He's still bleedin' though, that's why the Doc is concentratin' on him."

"His leg?" She remembered the blood trailing down when Joe rode out to save her pa. "Or did he get hurt again?"

"He's beat up like your Pa, but the leg's what's worryin' the Doc."

"He _did_ it for Pa," she said, her voice shaking.

"What's that?"

"Joe knew he could die if he rode after Pa. I tried to stop him." She choked and the tears began to flow. "I tried, but I _couldn't!"_

"Laura..."

"Oh, Mister Edwards, if Joe dies it'll be all my fault! I should've stopped him!"

"Half-pint. Half-pint! Look at me!" He pulled her away and held her gaze. "Joe's a man and he made a decision. And he did save your Pa. He _did_."

She sucked in a sob. "You mean..."

"Your Pa would be dead if it wasn't for him." Isaiah wiped away her tears. "So you see, by lettin' Joe go, _you_ had a hand in savin' your pa too."

She heard Mary gasp.

"They're getting them out of the wagon," her sister said.

Mister Edwards took hold of them both and pulled them back. He had a hand on each of their shoulders. His grip was tight and it gave her strength as she watched Mister Oleson and Mister Dorfler carry Joe into the house. He was all bundled up in a blanket, but she could tell it was him 'cause his hair was silver and shining in the afternoon sun.

She felt Mary take her hand. Her sister made that same little noise Ma had made when looking in the wagon.

"Pa..."

He was wrapped up to, but his face was showing. It was all bloody and swollen. His beautiful brown hair was thick with pine needles and dried grass clinging to mud and blood. Their mother came over to them as the men carried their pa into the house. She knelt before them and opened her arms.

"There, there," she soothed as they fell into them. "There, now. Your father's alive and he's home. So is Joe. Our prayers have been answered."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hours later when the girls had given in to exhaustion and fallen asleep in the loft and everyone had left except for Doctor Baker and Isaiah, Caroline fell into the chair before the fire and lowered her head into her hands. She was exhausted too. Seeing Charles the way he was, knowing how close he had come to dying, well, if there hadn't been things to do she would have just dissolved into a puddle. As it was, when Charles didn't have a need, Joe did. Both men were fighting infection and fever, but Joe was worse.

Much worse.

She sat for a moment, staring into the flames and then, feeling guilty rose again and went into Carrie's room. Her little ones' bed was too small for Joe to be comfortable, so they had built a place for him to lay using Carrie's ticking and a pile of blankets. She hoped it was comfortable enough.

Still, at the moment, she doubted Joe knew whether it was or not.

Lowering herself to the floor, she sat beside him and looked at him. He had the look of an angel with that silver hair and beautiful boyish face. Like a little lost boy, he looked sad and lonely as well. He was so far from home and from the ones who loved him. She wished she could get word to them that he was here and, for the moment, alive. She couldn't imagine one of her girls growing up and leaving and never being heard from again. The ache – the hole in her heart would never be filled.

Reaching out, she pushed a few of the wet curls back from his fevered forehead. Joe had spoken some of his family. She knew he had two brothers – Adam and Hoss. Hoss had died and Adam vanished without a word. They had been close, she could tell. It near broke her heart to see the pain in his eyes when he mentioned them. Apparently his father was named Ben and he was one of the largest land owners in Nevada State. Joe was quite wealthy in land and money. But money and wealth were empty things if there was no one to share them with. He'd married two years before. His young wife had been murdered and her body burned in a fire along with the child she carried. Caroline's hand rested on his head.

One could not imagine.

Looking at him, she could see what Alice fell in love with. Joe was handsome and seemed to be a charming man. He had the same smile and laugh as Charles. Sadly now, after the tragedy, his grief colored everything. In some ways Joe reminded her of Isaiah, a man driven by demons so deep within himself that no one and nothing could exorcise them. The mountain man had tried by numbing himself with liquor just like Joe.

Of course, when the numbness wore off...

Driven by compassion, Caroline took Joe's hand and held it and, like a mother, ran the fingers of her other hand along his furrowed brow and though the sweat-soaked curls that clung to it. She began to hum, and finally to sing.

 _There's a land that is fairer than day,_ _  
_ _And by faith we can see it afar;_ _  
_ _For the Father waits over the way_ _  
_ _To prepare us a dwelling place there._

 _In the sweet by and by,  
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;  
In the sweet by and by,  
We shall meet on that beautiful shore._

"I saw her...you know," a weary voice said softly. "Waitin' there...on that...shore..."

Caroline smiled as she met his fevered gaze and nodded. Others would say it was crazy, but _she_ knew it was true. "I believe you, Joe."

"...told me...not my time..."

She touched his hair again. "No. I'm sure it's not."

A smile wrinkled the corner of his lips. "Things...to do..."

Like _live,_ she thought.

"Yes."

Joe's fingers tightened on hers. "Your husband?" he asked, his voice finding strength.

The blonde woman fought back tears. "Better than you. Fighting too. Thank you for saving him."

She expected him to defer, to insist he hadn't. Instead he said, "Only...fair."

"Fair?"

Those green eyes, emeralds in the darkness, focused on her. "Owed you...for saving me."

"Joe, I didn't – "

His fingers found their way to her lips and silenced her. "Seems I need...a...woman in...my life after all."

Caroline thought of that hand she had felt on her shoulder while she was praying. "Alice would want you to be happy. To find someone to share your life with. To have children with them."

He winced but then nodded. "Maybe. Someday."

"Caroline, are you wearing my patient out?" Doctor Baker asked. She turned to find Hiram standing in the entry to Carrie's room. He was smiling, but worry crinkled his blue eyes.

She smiled back at him. "We were just talking about Joe's future."

The sick man snorted. "'Course we're waiting for you...to tell me if...I got one."

The doctor entered the room. "Why don't you and I switch places, Caroline? There's more than enough ornery men in this house to go around."

Something in the way he said it gave her hope. "Charles?"

He nodded. "He's asking for you."

She was up and on her way in a second. At the door Hiram caught her arm. "Don't expect too much. I have him heavily sedated and its hard for him to talk with all the bruising."

It didn't matter! Charles was _awake!_

Caroline flew through the common room, past the kitchen and down the corridor, slowing just as she came to their room. It was night now and the doctor had lit a lamp. In its glow Charles looked less...damaged. Still, the cuts and bruises were evident and his poor face was so swollen he didn't look like himself. His eyes were closed and she wondered if he had gone back to sleep.

Taking a seat beside him on the bed, she touched the one area of his face that was undamaged and called softly, "Charles. Charles, its Caroline."

She waited and then tried one more time.

"Charles?"

When there was no response she started to rise. It was then she felt a movement of his hand. His fingers sought hers. He had no strength to squeeze them, so she tightened her grip.

"Are you awake?"

The nod was minimal, but it was there.

"Are you in pain?"

He shook his head slightly. His lips opened and he said, "No..."

"The doctor gave you laudanum."

There was a little smile. "Good...stuff..."

Caroline chuckled with relief. "You're hopeless. Do you know that?"

Again, he nodded.

A second later Charles' eyes clouded with something. "Joe...?" he managed.

"Here. Hurt, but healing. Like you."

Her husband's eyes opened wide and just as quickly began to close. "He's a...good man..."

Caroline watched Charles fall asleep. It would be a long road, but she felt in her heart both men would live. Rising, she kissed her husband's brow and then went to her chair by the fire. Finding her Bible, she took it with her as she headed for the front door. Stepping out into the night, she lifted her head and gazed at the sky. In the aftermath of the rain it was beautiful, like black silk dotted with diamonds. The moon was high and full and it was almost like day outside. Walking over to the stump she often shared with Charles she sat down and opened her the well-worn book. The bookmark was still set on Lamentations Three. She thought again of her puzzlement when God had given her this chapter. She knew now who it was for. Glancing at the house she thought of how she would have to read it to Joe when he was strong enough.

 _And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity._

 _And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord,_

 _remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall._

 _My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me._

 _This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope._

 _It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed,_

 _because His compassions fail not._

 _They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness._

 _The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him._

Caroline sat there a moment longer and then, with a heart full of joy and gratitude, returned inside to tend the men she loved.


	12. Chapter 11

ELEVEN

Feeling every ache and pain he'd earned in his sixty-plus years, Ben Cartwright carefully dismounted his horse. After watching Jamie do the same, he stepped up to the rail, tethered the horse, and then turned to look at the small town they were in. There was much about Walnut Grove that reminded him of the early days in Virginia City when the town had been nothing more than a small gathering of framework buildings – before the discovery of silver and all the other rich minerals that made it boom. There was a feed store, a mercantile, a small bank and a post office, a church with a fine white steeple and bell, and, of course, a mill. By the shingle hanging on it, he could tell he had been right about his old friend Lars Hanson. Lars was still in Walnut Grove. He and Jamie had stopped by the mill first but found it closed.

"Where do you think we should head, Pa?" Jamie asked as he joined him.

Ben clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder. Jamie looked tired, but then they'd both been worn to the nubbin by worry and the weariness of a seven day journey by train. They'd arrived in La Crosse, met with Daniel Jacobs, and then hired two horses and backtracked into Minnesota by land. Dan had word that the man who owned the livery in Medary had sold a horse to someone answering to Joe's description nearly three weeks before. He said the man was headed east, taking the road that ran through Sleepy Eye and Walnut Grove.

So, here they were, headed west.

"I'd say the mercantile or the church," he replied. "That's where people gather." He lifted his hand from Jamie's shoulder. "If there's something to know, the townsfolk will be talking about it. They wouldn't be used to strangers in these parts."

"It's so different from back in Nevada, Pa."

Jamie hadn't seen much of the world. Once they found Joe, maybe they'd take a tour of the East before returning to the Ponderosa.

 _If_ they found Joe.

"There's folks going in the church now," the boy said.

There were indeed.

Ben frowned. "Is it Sunday?"

Jamie laughed. "Yeah, Pa. Didn't you know?"

To tell the truth, he had lost all track of time. Lord forgive him!

Clapping a hand on the boy's shoulder again, he said, "Why don't you and I attend the service here? That way when its over, we can ask if anyone has heard of Joe."

By the time they arrived most of the congregants were seated. The minister greeted them with haste and then moved to the front of the church. He and Jamie slipped into a pew at the back and joined in the opening hymn before sitting down. It was a quaint church and reminded him of some of the simpler ones back East. This one, no doubt, had been built by the men sitting in it. They looked like simple honest businessmen and farmers. There were times he envied them. His life had been spent building an empire; its only importance, that it be passed on to his sons.

If Joe was lost there would be no one.

Ben looked to his left where Jamie sat with his head bowed, listening to the prayer.

No. That was wrong.

There was Jamie.

"Good morning everyone," the minister said. "For those of you who find yourself attending for the first time, I am the Reverend Robert Alden. Whatever your reason for being in our fine town, you are welcome. Please stay afterward so you can be greeted properly and share in our social time."

From there the Reverend Alden went on to address some church business, and then he had everyone bow their heads again for a second prayer in anticipation of the sermon. It was a good one based on First Thessalonians Five, verses sixteen through eighteen.

 _Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you._

When the minister was finished he looked out over the congregation, focusing on a family seated near the front. There was a blonde woman with three stair-step girls. Beside them was a man. The sight of the back of the man made Ben's heart ache. Whoever he was he had a head of thick curly hair that was so like Joseph's younger self.

The minister beamed. "We want to acknowledge the return of our brother, Charles Ingalls, to the service today. As you know, Charles ran afoul of some evil men and was beaten quite severely. The Lord has seen fit to heal him and return him to us for which we give thanks."

There was a general round of applause and a few hearty whistles. Obviously, the man was well liked and respected.

"Charles, would you like to say anything?" the Revered Alden asked.

The man stood up slowly. Ben watched his wife take his arm and rise with him. "Thank you, Reverend," he said. His voice had that edge – the one a man has after a long recuperation. "I'd like to ask for continued prayers for the man we have with us. If there's anyone here who doesn't know, he saved my life – maybe at the price of his own."

The man turned and Ben felt the earth slip out from beneath his feet. Beside him, Jamie sucked in air and asked in a tense whisper, "Pa?"

He shook his head. It wasn't Joe. This was just an odd coincidence. It was said that somewhere in the world everyone had a twin.

They had just found Joe's.

"The Doctor is with him now. The fever just won't break. He's worn down to practically nothin' but he's still fightin'. If you would tonight, before you lay down your heads, please join me in a prayer for Joe Cartwright."

Ben was on his feet before he realized it.

The man who looked so much like Joe walked slowly down the aisle. In his eyes, Ben saw impossible recognition.

"Mister Cartwright?" Charles Ingalls asked. " _Ben_ Cartwright?"

Ben couldn't speak. He actually had to sit down. Around them the church broke into chaos with the minister hastening everyone out the door, telling them to begin the social immediately. Ben heard the doors close behind him, but he still couldn't move.

It took a gentle hand on his own before he could manage to breathe.

"Mister Cartwright, I'm Caroline. Charles' wife. Can I get you anything. Water?

"My...son," he said, disbelieving, 'he's here? Joe's _here?"_

Charles sat in the pew in front of him. "Yes, sir. He's at our house."

"We've been caring for him." The woman's smile was genuine. "He is quite a young man. He saved my husband's life."

"You said Joe was sick?" Jamie asked.

Ben turned and looked at him. He'd all but forgotten the boy. Jamie looked just as shaken as he felt. "This is my son, Jamie. Joe's brother."

Caroline smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Jamie."

"How's Joe?"

Charles answered. "It's a long story. We can tell it here, or you can come to our home and hear it after you see your son."

Ben nodded. "I'd like that. Jamie and I rented horses. They're outside." He blinked, still stunned. "Is it far?"

"Just three miles outside of town, Mister Cartwright," one of the Ingalls' children answered. Ben looked up to find a row of precious little female faces looking at him. It was the middle one that had spoken. "It don't take long at all when you got a horse."

"I'm afraid I ain't movin' as fast as I usually do," Charles apologized as he rose. "Give us a minute while we get the wagon ready and loaded."

Ben managed a smile. He indicated the girls. "You have quite a precious load there."

"Sure do. Wouldn't trade them for all the money in the world."

The older man wondered what tale he had yet to hear. From the look of the man – and the look of wary happiness in his family's eyes – it was one that very well could have been a tragedy instead of a triumph.

Ben rose. He nodded to Jamie.

They had yet to find out which it would be for Joe.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Ingalls in their wagon led them to a modest house about three miles outside the town. As they traveled, he learned that Charles had built it with his own hands. It seemed that, on top of being a farmer, he was a carpenter – something of which his young daughters were quite proud. The family struck him as a good solid one, deeply devoted to each other and to God. He learned as well a bit of the reason Joe had come to know them. Apparently his son had almost died once before, saving their middle girl – the one named Laura who had spoken to him.

Ben smiled sadly, wondering how that name had effected Joseph.

Before he could be told any more they reached the house. A man in black that Ben instantly recognized as a doctor stepped out. When the blond man saw him and Jamie riding behind the wagon he frowned.

"That's Doc Baker," Laura said. "He's been tendin' Joe."

He looked at the man. He wished he could tell just from a look whether or not he was competent.

Then again, he _had_ saved Charles.

As the wagon drew to a halt, the doctor came forward. "Charles. Caroline." He eyed him with much the same suspicion. "And who do we have here?"

"This is Joe's Pa," Laura told him as he dismounted. "And his brother."

The doctor's lips were pursed. He assessed them with a professional eye. Then he held out his hand. "Doctor Hiram Baker, sir. I assume that means you are Ben Cartwright."

"Yes. How's my son?"

The blond man grew sober. "He hasn't given up, but the fight's almost too much for him." Hiram scratched his head. "Truth to tell, I think the boy needs something to live for." He paused. "Or someone."

"Can I see him?"

Again the doctor's eyes assessed him, like he was looking into a microscope. At last he nodded. "I think it will do him good. Come on."

The interior of the Ingalls' home was warm and inviting. It was not large, but it was spacious compared to some structures of the time. Ben noted a woman's touch – flowers on the table, a throw on the back of a chair; lace curtains.

Sometimes he forgot how much he missed that.

"He's in here," Caroline said as she entered, turning toward the room near the front. "I'm afraid he was too big for Carrie's bed. We have him on a ticking on the floor. We've been careful to keep him warm."

Jamie was beside him. "Pa? Ain't you gonna go in?"

Fear had gripped him. Fear that it _wouldn't_ be Joe. That all his hopes would be dashed the second he entered that room.

"Mister Cartwright?" The woman was watching him closely. "Are you all right?"

He nodded, unable to speak, and went in.

It was dark in the corner where the bed lay. The room was illuminated only by the sunlight streaming in the window and it didn't reach that far. He crossed over to the pallet and stood for a moment looking down. All that was showing above the blankets was a portion of a thin drawn face and a mass of silver-grey curls. Lowering his body to the floor, Ben sat down and reached out and pulled the blanket down.

To reveal his son.

Tears flooded his eyes. His hand trembled as he reached out and touched his pallid cheek. Until he did, he wasn't certain he was real.

"Joseph," he said softly. "Joseph, it's Pa."

His son moaned and shifted, wincing as if uncomfortable.

'I don't mean to intrude Mister Cartwright," the doctor said from the doorway. "I just wanted to fill you in quickly on what your boy's been fighting. That bear that he drove away from the Ingalls' girl bit his arm and leg. The arm's healed."

"What about his leg?"

"To be truthful, I thought he might lose it, but the infection's abated enough that I chose to try to save it."

"Abated? Not gone?"

Doctor Baker shook his head. "And it _should_ be by now. Joe's weak. I think he needs someone else's strength to pull him through."

Ben nodded. "God willing Jamie and I will be enough."

The blond man hesitated. "He's talked about you and his brothers." He cast a glance at Jamie whom Caroline had seated at the table and was placing a piece of pie in front of. "He never mentioned a younger one."

"Jamie's adopted. Joe was talking about his blood bothers."

"And they're both gone?"

Ben nodded. No point in going into it. "Yes."

"He seems a young man to whom family is everything."

The older man looked up at him, surprised. The last two years he had begun to doubt it.

"Charles told me he's been depressed, ever since the death of his wife and child."

He glanced at his sleeping boy. "Yes. Alice. Joseph loved her very much."

The doctor scratched his head. "He's talked about her too or, rather, talked _to_ her."

"What?"

"Bold as anything. I got the feeling that she _was_ here," the blond man said, his smile rueful. "And that she was giving him what-for."

Ben laughed.

It felt good.

Beneath his hand, Joe shifted at the sound. His son's eyelids fluttered and then Joe's eyes opened. The boy looked confused, so the older man took hold of his chin and turned him so he could look directly in his eyes.

"Joseph, what is this?" he asked, his tone lovingly stern. "Laying in bed for weeks? Those horses the army needs are waiting for you at home."

Joe blinked back tears. His son's hand lifted toward him. "Pa? Is it...you?"

Ben gripped it. There were tears in his eyes as well. "Yes, son. It's me. Jamie's here too."

Joe's gaze wandered to the doorway. The doctor retreated so Jamie could take his place. Ben couldn't help but smile. The boy had blackberry juice on his chin.

"Hey, older brother," he said as he wiped it with a napkin. "We've been tryin' to find you."

"Well...here...I am," Joe said with a snort.

"Joseph." Ben squeezed his son's warm fingers. "Are you _ready_ to be found?"

Joe looked at him. All of the yearning of a child long away from home, lost, now recovered, was in that stare.

" _More_ than ready to be found." His son grinned. "Pa, I'm ready to go home."

His boy was looking at him, love shining out of his eyes. And there was something else there. Something Ben hadn't seen for a long time.

Life.

Joseph was going to be just fine.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

They stayed with the Ingalls another week. Ben tried to talk the couple into letting him and Jamie get a room in town, but Caroline insisted they needed to be there whenever Joe woke up. He and Jamie were used to sleeping anywhere and so, after much discussion, she said it was all right for them to bed down in the barn. Ben smiled as he watched Caroline Ingalls walking with his son in the light of the day, carefully leading Joseph forward step by step and letting him lean on her for strength. She was quite a woman and in a way reminded him of _all_ his wives. Gentle intelligent Elizabeth, bright beautiful Ingrid, and Marie, who had never backed down.

"So you're gonna leave us?" a familiar voice asked.

Ben turned. It was still slightly unnerving to look at Charles Ingalls. The man looked more like Joseph than any of his brothers did, including Marie's other son, Clay. If Joseph's hair had not gone grey – divine justice no doubt for all of the hairs of the same color his youngest had added to his father's head – they would have been twins.

"The Doctor said Joseph would be well enough to travel tomorrow. I think it's time we head home."

Charles looked back toward the area beside the house where his girls were running and shouting. Jamie was with them, egging them on. "Those three young ladies are gonna be heartbroken."

"Just three more in a _long_ line," Ben laughed.

"Don't surprise me," the farmer said with a snort indicating the pair before them. "If he wasn't a gentleman, I might have to worry about Caroline."

He was kidding, of course.

"How are you, Charles?"

The farmer shrugged. "Better. Not best. Winter's comin' so I'll be able to rest up some – once the work is done, of course."

It was waiting for them at home as well. With Joseph still too weak to do chores, he would have to hire someone to do them for him. It would be too much for Jamie alone.

Ben hesitated and then he said, "I would like to thank you for returning my boy to me."

Charles frowned. "Not sure what you mean."

At that moment there was a burst of infectious laughter. They both looked and found Caroline wiping her eyes.

"It's been two years since I have heard that laugh," he said quietly. "Two _long_ years."

Charles shrugged. "We just reminded Joe of what he already knew. If anyone can take any credit, its Caroline." He grinned, so much like his son. "She said I was too soft on him."

"Sometimes it takes a woman's touch." Ben sighed. "I miss Alice too. She was so good for Joe."

The other man fell quiet. "Can't imagine," he said at last. After a moment he looked at him. "You mind if I ask you a question?"

The older man shook his head. "No. Ask away."

"Joe said you lost _three_ wives?"

"Yes."

Charles pursed his lips and shook his head. "Seems like more hurt than one man could take."

"I had my sons." He nodded toward the giggling girls. "Just like you would have your daughters. You would go on for them." Ben looked at Joe again. He and Caroline had stopped at the stump by the log pile. Joseph was sitting down. "God gives and He takes away," he said quietly, "and He gives again. He's seen fit to answer my prayers. My son is coming home, and not just in body but in _spirit_."

"Hey, Pa!"

Ben sighed. There were times when he thought he would never hear that phrase again.

"Yes, Joseph?"

"You gotta hear this. You know that old battle-axe at the mercantile? You gotta hear what happened when she went camping with the Ingalls."

He rolled his eyes. "Joseph, its not proper or gentlemanly to call a woman a battle-axe..." He stopped when he felt Charles' hand on his arm.

The farmer shook his head. "Ain't worth it. Harriet Oleson _is_ a battle-axe."

Ben laughed all the way to his son's side.


	13. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Joe Cartwright sniffed and wiped a tear from his eye as he walked toward the Ingalls' barn for the last time. The moment had come to say goodbye. This simple family had worked its way into his heart until he felt like they were a part of him and it was hard. He'd never compare it to losing his brothers or Alice, but it was a close second. They'd saved him in so many ways, the least of which was preserving his life. He was almost healed now, though his leg was weak. It would be some time before he could break horses again. He'd have to be content sitting on the sidelines like old Dan Tollivar, barking orders at the young bucks.

Joe looked over at his pa. He was on his horse and waiting. Jamie was beside him. He was glad Pa had Jamie. His disappearance could have been the last blow; all the older man needed to push him over the edge.

God, in His mercy, had preserved Ben Cartwright.

He'd said goodbye to Caroline and Charles, and to the youngest and oldest of the Ingalls' girls. But the one he wanted to see the most was missing. 'Hiding', her pa told him. Charles also told him Laura's usual hiding place was in the loft near the back of the barn. He crossed over to the ladder and stood under it, listening. She was there. He could hear her sniffling.

Joe looked at the ladder and was a little troubled that the climb looked daunting. Then, he gripped the bottom rung and drew his body up, putting most of the weight on his arms and not his game leg. He saw her as soon as his head crested above the wooden floor. She was sitting in the back, against the barn wall, all curled in a tight little ball.

As he stepped onto the floor, he called her name. "Laura?"

The sniffling halted and then began again in earnest.

He still limped. He hoped one day that would go away. Crossing haltingly to her side, he lowered himself to the straw-covered boards.

Crouching was out of the question.

For some time they sat in silence and then he said, "You want to know where my favorite place was to go when I was kid?"

Laura sniffed again. The little girl looked over her knees at him. She shrugged. "I guess."

He stretched out his legs, easing the pain in the bad one by rubbing his fist up and down it above the place where the bear's teeth had gone in. "My brother Hoss and I called it our 'happy place'. It's nestled up in the mountains. There's a hill covered with pine on one side and a long slope that ends in a lake with mountains on the other three sides." He shook his head. "It's about the prettiest thing I've ever seen."

"I sure would like to see it," she said, her voice wispy and sad.

"You just did," Joe said.

"What do you mean?" Laura scowled. "It's in Nevada, ain't it? I can't see Nevada from here."

Joe smiled. "You can if you close your eyes."

The scowl deepened. "That's silly."

"No, it's not," he assured her. "What's behind my eyes _is_ my favorite place now. I can see my brothers there, and Alice."

Laura nodded soberly. "I bet she was pretty."

"As a May morning." Joe drew a breath and let it out slowly. It was so freeing to think of Alice and not feel pain. Oh, the loss was still there, but the memory of her _alive_ was all he was beginning to see. Joe turned toward the little girl. "You know, you look an awful lot like her."

She scrunched her nose up and shook her head, looking for all the world like the old spinster teacher Abigail Jones who had been the terror of his boyhood. "Now I _know_ you're joshin' me."

"Cross my heart," he said, and did. Joe reached out and took hold of one of the girl's brown pigtails. "You're pretty as May morning too, Laura."

They sat in silence again. Joe could hear his own heart beating and marveled still at the fact that he was alive. It had been his pa's voice that'd done it. It had called him out of a dark peaceful place. Alice had been there with him. She'd told him over and over again that he had to go. Now that he could look at her and not despair, he hadn't wanted to – not until he heard his pa calling him.

Calling him back to life.

"I don't want you to go."

Joe nodded. "I know, but I gotta. My home's on the Ponderosa."

He knew it now. No more running. It was where he belonged.

"It's so far away," she said with another sniff. "I'll never see you again."

"Now, you got an advantage most don't. You don't need to close your eyes."

"I don't?" she asked, clearly puzzled.

He grinned. "All you gotta do to see me is look at your pa."

Laura's lips twitched. "You do look an awful lot alike. Ma said its like you came out of the same mold."

And probably meant _that_ in more ways than one.

"But Pa don't have that shiny hair like you do."

Joe ran a hand through his silver-grey locks. He could feel the laughter bubbling up in him. "Just give him a few years. With three girls, it's not gonna be long, 'specially when one of them is you." He poked her nose as he said it.

Laura giggled. She looked at him, every ounce of her meaning it when she said, "I love you, Joe Cartwright."

He opened his arms and as she fell into them, he caressed her brown hair and whispered, "Laura Ingalls, I love you too."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The train left the next evening. Joe promised Laura he would write, and he would. He'd write when he was sitting in his favorite place, thinking about his favorite people, not crying, but smiling and laughing as he knew they wanted him to.

Hoss.

Adam.

Alice and the baby.

Laura too.

They were his now.

Forever.


End file.
